garvin@uhccux.UUCP (Jay Garvin) (05/04/88)
Hi folks, Aloha from Hawaii!
I have some questions for all of you out there who manage Macintosh
facilities at a University:
1 -Do you charge your students, faculty, and staff for printouts
on your LaserWriters?
2 -If so, how much?
3 -If not, why not?
4 -What kinds of problems did you run into?
Also let me know how many installations you have and about how many
total macs you have at your place. We are trying to get some ideas
on this as our Macintosh facilities expand here...
Thanks for your comments!
-Jay Garvin,
Computer Specialist, uhcc
"Open the pod bay, doors please, HAL."
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=============================================================================dorourke@polyslo.UUCP (David M. O'Rourke) (05/05/88)
In article <1814@uhccux.UUCP> garvin@uhccux.UUCP (Jay Garvin) writes: >Hi folks, Aloha from Hawaii! > >I have some questions for all of you out there who manage Macintosh >facilities at a University: > > 1 -Do you charge your students, faculty, and staff for printouts > on your LaserWriters? I assisted the UC Irvine in setting up a Mac lab with a Laser printer. Originally they didn't charge for use but that got old real quick. They were going thru 6 toner carts every two weeks, about 18-19,000 pages. After they started charging it went down to 1 toner cart. a month. We also used to offer a service thru the bookstore for laser printing. > 2 -If so, how much? Both the bookstore and the Mac Lab settled on a price of .25 cents per page. > 4 -What kinds of problems did you run into? Most of the problems were with people who didn't know how to set up a document for the LaserPrinter. A some people who did know were unwilling to take the time, and then they would complain about the results. It was no big deal in the lab since the computers were there to be used. But people who used to come by the bookstore seemed to feel they had the right to sit there and occupy our display machines all day. We finally had to start charging people for machine time if they had to do editting in the store. If they complained we sent them to the lab which was free. After we started charging for machine time you would be amazed at how many people could get it right the first time, that couldn't get it right at all before we started charging. >Also let me know how many installations you have and about how many >total macs you have at your place. We are trying to get some ideas >on this as our Macintosh facilities expand here... Well we had approx. 30 mac's in the lab with one Laser Printer. And the store had one of each model of Macintosh set up and one Laser Printer. David M. O'Rourke +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ | dorourke@polyslo | Disclaimer: All opinions in this message are mine, but | | | if you like them they can be yours too. | | | Besides I'm just a student so what do I | | | know! | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | When you have to place a disclaimer in your mail you know it's a sign | | that there are TOO many Lawyer's. | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) (05/05/88)
Sorry to post this, but the "m" command rarely finds the mark... > I have some questions for all of you out there who manage Macintosh > facilities at a University: > > 1 -Do you charge your students, faculty, and staff for printouts > on your LaserWriters? Yes to all of them, both Mac Lab, PC Lab, and mainframes. > 2 -If so, how much? 15 cents a page. This price is based on both keeping the machine in toner and paper as well as accumulating enough to perhaps buy a second printer when this wears out or becomes overworked. > 3 -If not, why not? I just said we did! :-) > 4 -What kinds of problems did you run into? Actually, not as many as we thought. On our old TurboDOS (CP/M clone) network (some 60 stations and on its last legs), we wrote our own print software which automatically costed pages and made up appropriate letter quality bills. Students have to pre-pay before they can print. Now that we're using PC's and Macs, we don't have as much flexibility. That is, the operator has to count the pages. An unfortunate job but it has to be done if we intend to charge for laser pages. > Also let me know how many installations you have and about how many > total macs you have at your place. We are trying to get some ideas > on this as our Macintosh facilities expand here... We have a 12 station Mac SE lab for student use, as well as various other Macs at other locations (such as the Mac II in my office) hooked up as well. The lab was *very* heavily used this past year, especially during "thesis week" (the week theses are due) and we see only increased use next year (this past year was the first year we had a Mac Lab up and running). Other universities use debit cards and various other techniques but we found there was no better solution than manual counting. We would really like to have accounting software like we have on our TurboDOS system but have found nothing that seems to do the job... -- Peter Steele, Microcomputer Applications Analyst Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B0P1X0 (902)542-2201x121 UUCP: {uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}dalcs!aucs!Peter BITNET: Peter@Acadia Internet: Peter%Acadia.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu (05/07/88)
Here at the U of I, the cost is .10-.20 per page on laserwriter plus printers. The machines take magnetic cards, which also operate Xerox machines.Each card can hold up to 400 ticks. Vending machines sell cards with 5 ticks for $1. A card can hold up to 400 ticks total. The quantity discount is something like: 1-100 ticks 10 ticks/dollar 101-200 ticks 14 ticks/dollar 201-399 ticks 17 ticks/dollar 400 ticks 20 ticks/dollar My card says "Dual Office Supplies, 2411 Bond St, University Park, IL 60466, (312) 534-1500". Perhaps these people (the card sellers) know about the vending machines.
benjamin_kuo@pedro.UUCP (Benjamin Kuo) (05/09/88)
I'm not any part of a Macintosh facility, but I do know that the University of Utah charges from 25 cents (for students and faculty) to 50 cents for non University personnel. The main problem they seem to have is having the right setup on your disks. (Wrong versions of MacWrite, or PageMaker, or not having them at all). The U of U uses hundreds and hundreds of Macs, with the same price and fonts on all their LaserWriter equipped AppleTalk networks.
thompson@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu (05/14/88)
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has gotten more and more Macced over the past year. In fact, a special "computer fee" of $20 per semester was instituted this year to finance the additional labs popping up all over. About half of the labs are Mac labs -- the others are PS/2 labs (booo hissss). But most of the administrators have noticed that the PS/2s go largely unused, while the Macs tend to have waiting lists. I believe this has not gone unnoticed (yayyy! grin) and will result in even more Macs pretty soon. Originally (last year), there were only two mac labs I can recall, both operated by our Computing Services Office. Both had free Imagewriting, and one had laserwriting, which was charged two "clicks" per page. A "click" was a unit designed by our Library System here to control their copy machine usage... we can purchase "copy cards", which contain a number of "clicks" on them (they're magnetic strip cards). Depending on the quantity of clicks purchased at one time, they cost from 10 cents to 5 cents per click (quantity discounts -- 400 for $20, only 10 for $1). Copies in copy machines cost one click, and laserwriter copies cost two. The laserwriters were fitted with magnetic card readers/decrementers, into which we placed a copy card. Printing which was done without a card came out blank (hence, I assume the card reader was connected into the network port or processor of the laserwriter). But now, since the installation of the computer fee, we have had a large "public" mac lab installed in our Student Union (previous labs were officially "instructional" -- classes had priority). Initially, the public mac lab had free laser printing (with a sign begging us to go easy, please), but people instantly abused it. I personally witnessed a man printing five copies of a poster, rather than printing one and making copies elsewhere, while people were waiting in line behind him. Worse, there was no incentive to be correct on your papers, or to print only reasonable numbers of pages (people could download huge files at home from Usenet, and print them off on the "Free" laserwriter). Apparently, the administrators of the lab had enough of this pretty quickly, because within two weeks, there was a sign up notifying students that multiple copies were not allowed, and there was a fifteen minute time limit at the "Laserwriter Macs" (the two Macs set aside for laserwriting -- there are two laserwriters, each hooked up to one Mac dedicated to laserprinting). But apparently even that was not enough, for it did not really get rid of the "spurious" printing... the stuff which didn't HAVE to be laserwritten, but students decided that since it was free anyway... Well, apparently funds were drying up pretty quickly too (a lab operator told me they had used up in FOUR MONTHS their entire printing cost allotment for the year), so they finally gave in and installed the "copy card readers" in the public mac lab as well, but charging only one click per page. This strikes me as eminently reasonable... since I use it relatively often, I went in for the $20 copy card, and hence laserwriting is costing me a nickel a page. Not too bad. But there are more labs on campus than the Public Lab in the Union. Indeed, Mac labs have sprung up all over campus, and many are equipped with laserwriters. A few are in the dorms, and the laserwriting there is free (the dormites pay an *extra* computer fee of $50 per year tacked on to their housing charge to finance the dorm labs -- and only dormites can use them). There are various other labs as well -- the original CSO "instructional" labs are still alive and well, and the new "Instructional Media Mac Lab", for use by faculty/staff only, is free for departmental use (up to $50 per course per semester, I believe). Then there's the ACM Mac Lab, for use by ACM members primarily, but also "open to the public", and I believe the laserwriting is free to ACM members. And the "Foreign Language Lab" in the Foreign Language Building, where laserwriting is *still* free (I think it's the only PUBLIC free laserwriter on campus). And that's more or less the current state of affairs here at the UI -- although "Macification" continues at a breathless pace as more and more of the LASers discover that a computer really *can* make doing that report easier. Big note here, though -- I am only a grad student / TA here... I have no idea HOW the card readers are hooked up, nor do I really know the motivation behind the changes in the Public lab -- these are all my opinions. But I think they're probably pretty close. -- Mark Thompson | Disclaimer: I haven't the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | foggiest what I'm saying, INTERNET:thompson@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu | and neither does the U of I. BITNET :thompson%uxf.cso.uiuc.edu@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu