One of the changes made to campus this year was the switch to the new printing service, PaperCut. Since the end of the spring semester, the technology department had been experiencing trouble with the previous printing server, as some students had to convert their papers to PDFs to print.
The problems were not being resolved, as much as the university and the previous company tried, and the solution reached was to find a service that could fill the needs of the university.
“After talking with several other schools in New York State, most were using the PaperCut software that we chose,” said Daniel Donner, the director of User Services. “They are well-known across higher education in general and have been given great reviews for years. We definitely had to make a move, and, despite trying to avoid anything like this during the academic semester, we thought it would be best to just get the new software launched to prevent further frustration from the students not being able to print from their own devices.”
The link to the printing service is located in the same place as the previous, under the Student Services tab on MySBU. PaperCut has a completely different look than the previous website. Students no longer have to add printers to their account; all printers automatically appear as options when a student goes to print. Assignments do not have to be converted to any specific format, either.
The new site has the feature of letting users know their environmental impact. The three categories shown are how much of a tree has been used, the amount of carbon dioxide produced and the amount of energy used in terms of how long a 60-watt light bulb would be on.
“I think students are generally aware and careful about the volume of printing that they do,” said Donner. “We have seen a dramatic reduction in our student printing over the past two years, and I would like to believe that both the students and our faculty are more conscious about this area.”
The response from students has been mixed. Many students are indifferent, some find the website difficult to navigate, some like it and some students have not had to use the service yet. Sophomore psychology major Diana DeVito thinks the service is an improvement and said, “I really like that it tells you how much you’re affecting the environment.”
“We hope students are happy with the new print service,” said Donner. “We appreciate their patience as we were working through the original vendor’s issues and during the time, we migrated over to the new service. Wayne Oonk is the technician who spent many hours getting this issue resolved, including many evenings monitoring the issue from home at night trying to avoid as much down time for students printing as possible.”
The new service has worked well so far, and it even works with the printer in the breezeway between De La Roche Hall and Walsh Hall. Though the change may not seem very interesting or vital, wireless printing is one of the key elements of what makes St. Bonaventure student-oriented, and the work that went into the switch to PaperCut didn’t even sting.
By Faith Topolski, Staff Writer
topolsfl17@bonaventure.edu
