Higher education|
No students quotas meant unaccounted-for printing and spiraling costs
PaperCut’s quota and BYOD printing features led to cost-effective, easier printing
CWRU save up to $20k annually, and students can print from their own devices
Founded in 1826, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a research university located in Ohio. With a rich heritage and proven pedigree, they’re considered one of the highest quality schools in the United States.
In fact, their curriculums for international law, health law, and IP law rank among the best in the country. But with student printing costs spiraling every day, the same couldn’t be said for how they were managing printing. Which is why they came to us.
Problem
Ask any law school, and you’ll find there’s plenty of printing to be done – especially by students. With CWRU’s student body printing an enormous number of sheets per year, the situation certainly rang true for IT Director, Tron Compton-Engle.
“Without quotas, our students were printing around 2 million pages a year. We were also concerned about the environmental impact of what was clearly a great deal of wasteful printing,” says Tron.
But plenty of printing isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re doing your best to rein in usage. Problem is, CWRU had no quota system in place – students were printing freely with zero accountability and zero knowledge of costs and volumes.
Solution
Discovering PaperCut allowed Tron and the team to go beyond their current self-policing system – a simple printout reminding students to “not print things unnecessarily” – and implement quotas for every student.
“Students are given $37.50 of printing at $0.05 per page every six months. PaperCut also links up with our payment gateway system, ManagerQuikPay, to let students purchase additional pages if they use up their quota.”
PaperCut’s BYOD feature, Mobility Print, was also installed to make printing easier for all. “I can push printers to students with zero interaction on their side,” Tron says. “They don’t need their computer either; they can just open their phone and hit print en route to the printer.”
Outcome
With quotas and Mobility Print working in tandem, students became more mindful of their printing – and the proof was very much in the pudding: CWRU reduced their faculty printing costs by as much as US $20,000 per year.
Equipment usage and upkeep costs also fell: “Wireless printing allows students to print from their own devices, reducing the reliance on our computer labs. We hope to eliminate the labs eventually,” Tron says.
Moreover, with the ability to add features like Active Directory Integration and connectivity with Google Apps, moving to PaperCut hasn’t just cut costs; it’s made CWRU’s IT infrastructure more powerful.