“Anything that goes to ePrint will be duplex,” read the Duke Student Government minutes from Sept. 27, 2006. Three years later, that dream has yet to be realized. Hundreds of Duke students have been subjected to double the carrying weight and double the paper cuts because of our collective failure to act.
Coincidentally, at that same meeting in 2006, the idea of the ePrint quota was first placed before DSG to curb wasteful printing. Today, that quota has become a staple of the DukeCard point system.
This so-called “soft” quota is in fact no quota at all. Students can go through 1,800 pieces of paper per person before running out, and once remaining ePrint points reach $9, students can request an additional $10 ad infinitum. Essentially, the Duke student has no limit on his or her printing. Although the quota may increase awareness of paper usage, it does not confront the real issue: free riding on the paper trail.
Does the typical paper waster print more than 1,800 pages? Probably not. But maybe that’s not whom the policy is targeting.
Student groups or individuals who routinely use paper flyers have a good chance of reaching the 1,800 page mark. OIT does take a shot at these groups on their Web site. The first ePrint guideline reads: “Do not use printers as copiers. If you need multiple copies of a document, photocopy it.” A student who prints hundreds of flyers from ePrint is taking resources from the Duke community, imposing a financial cost that we all must eventually bear. In these cases of mass printing, does the soft quota have any effect when students can perpetually renew their printing points?
Maybe instead, when groups place flyers up, they could also be required to provide DSG with a receipt showing the photocopies made. The cost to the student group will be around $10, whereas the cost to the student body of having the group print the flyers is the added strain on an ePrint system that seems ready to collapse at any inopportune moment. (At 11 p.m. Monday, OIT’s Web site reported that only 20 of 65 monitored printers were functioning without issue.)
And such a policy doesn’t have to spell the end of flyering as we know it—DSG could provide each student group with an allotment of free flyers per semester, based on the number of events the group holds. Flyers produced over that set value would require a payment by the student group to cover costs.
But perhaps an even better solution would entirely avoid the bureaucracy of DSG. Refund every student their ePrint money. Set prices for printing and copying at their proper levels. Only in the Gothic Wonderland are printed pages cheaper than photocopies.
Students with extra cash will print, highlight and take notes atop their eReserve printouts. The most frugal segment of the student body will cease to print altogether, electing to read off the computer screen, handwriting term papers and saving their money for other purposes. But the magic occurs in the middle—groups of cooperating students will form around the new financial landscape where one student will print out the original document and make photocopies for other students in the same class.
Such collaboration could develop into full-blown study sessions, improving the academic environment of Duke as a whole.
Steve O’Donnell, OIT’s senior communications strategist, clarified some of OIT’s initiatives by e-mail. “We do not have plans to move to a hard quota system at this time,” he said. O’Donnell could not confirm the cost differences between photocopying and printing at Duke, but did stress OIT’s commitment to duplex printing to reduce costs and waste.
But some computers do not have a double-sided print option. The quick-use computers in Perkins Library, for example, cannot conveniently send jobs to print duplex. O’Donnell did say that there have been issues with a few computers, but that most lab computers should be printing double-sided as a default. O’Donnell asked that any computers not set to print duplex be reported to OIT.
O’Donnell also pointed out the benefits of the current paper saving program. OIT’s Web site reports that total pages sent to print decreased by 25 percent, while total paper used decreased by 35 percent in the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year. That translates to a 10 percent decrease in paper use because of duplex printing. Unfortunately, this data didn’t reflect the entire academic year, and it may not reflect the status of printing in 2009.
In March 2007, Duke chose to test out the soft quota plan supported by DSG. If our student government had monitored their proposed ePrint regime, perhaps the program could have worked. Now we are left in many cases without duplex printing and with an ineffectual quota system. But rather than trust a failed coordinator, why not trust ourselves? If your computer can’t print duplex, let OIT know. If you need to print multiple copies, use a copy machine. If you want to really save paper, don’t print at all.
Bottom line: the system should reward you for being good. Right now, the system benefits the free rider, and punishes the rest.
Elad Gross is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Wednesday.
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