By January, students will be able to log onto Printsense.tcnj.edu and check their printing activity, when PrintSense, a new print-tracking program, will go into effect so that the Student Government Association (SGA) and the office of Information Technology (IT) can research the printing needs of students at the College.
The print-tracking program allows the server to track the amount of pages each student prints at any of the 22 computer labs on campus.
Students will not be required to pay for pages printed over the current 400-page limit when the program begins in January although they will be charged for overages in Fall 2005.
"We listened to the concerns of students and decided to collect more data to evaluate the proposed allocation with the new transformed curriculum," Frank Nardozza, assistant director of Access Technology, said.
"We are going to meet with the Academic Leadership in early spring to discuss our plans and get their feedback."
The Committee on Student Services distributed surveys to all SGA members during the Nov. 10 SGA meeting to get feedback on the members' printing habits.
SGA President Pedro Khoury said that because PrintSense will most likely be implemented, it is SGA's goal to get students the highest number of pages for no charge.
Nardozza was not aware of the survey being distributed, but has received a list of concerns about the program from an SGA member. Nardozza said his organization is taking every concern into consideration.
Students are concerend with the increased number of pages that students are required to print by professors under the new transformation.
"My professors make me print out packets that sometimes consist of over 100 of pages," Jessica Tait, sophomore elementary education major, said.
Programs similar to PrintSense have been implemented at other colleges and have reduced waste by over 50 percent.
There are 6,399 printer users at the College. Of the 6,399, 4,523 printed at or under 400 pages a semester, the remaining 1,876 users print anywhere from 600 to 23,777 pages.
According to Nardozza, all students are paying for the small number of students that are abusing printing.
He said this new program would only affect the 18 percent of students printing over the 400-page limit.
"If I could only print out 400 free pages a semester, I'd owe a lot of money right now," Tait added.
After hearing some of these concerns and being asked if students could submit requests for more printing during the Oct. 14 SGA meeting Nardozza said, "Would we make exceptions? If we had to. We are trying to be fair."
Originally, PrintSense would allow students to print up to 400 pages a semester at no charge. For every page over the 400-page limit, students will be charged an additional five cents.
However, with the new transformation, IT is looking into whether students will require a higher page limit.
PrintSense is being implemented in order to conserve resources, help the environment and extend the life of printers in the computer labs, which is an average of only four years.
Currently, the College prints over 5 million pages a year.
According to Nardozza if 5 million pages were stacked they would pile up to nearly 200 stories, which would be 415 feet higher than the Empire State Building. If laid end-to-end they would stretch from the College to Florida, Nardozza said.
