Printing Policy

Printing Conservation

In the past, the CWRL maintained a liberal printing policy for the open lab which has resulted in excessive toner and paper waste. Without modification to our current policy, we anticipate this trend to continue. We have thus developed a more clearly articulated policy which aims to better manage our printing resources. Below are the new guidelines and procedures for printing in the CWRL open lab:

Limit Printing to CWRL Course Related Activities

Printing will be only provided to staff and students currently in the CWRL. Students may only print documents that are related to their CWRL coursework. Assignments, syllabi, and research materials all qualify with certain exceptions. Some guidelines include:

Users are limited in the number of pages they may print.

  • There is only one printer in the open lab. Students should not indiscriminately print multiple copies of the same document; the printer is not a copier (e.g. fliers are expressly prohibited).
  • Large documents should be printed in stages (i.e. Print pages 1-20, then print pages 21-40, then pages 41-60, etc.).
  • Large print jobs must be cleared in advanced with the Proctor on duty and must be limited to one final copy.
  • Students are responsible for being aware of the number of pages an Internet document contains before the print job is executed. If at all possible, printing should occur from printer friendly pages.
  • Proctors have the right to delete any print job which violates lab printing policies or prevent others from receiving their printouts in a timely manner.

All Users must comply with the CWRL Printing Policy

  • Users found violating the lab printing policy will have their printouts confiscated and may be asked to leave the lab.
  • Proctors will document student abusers of the printing policy. After a verbal warning to the student for the first incident, future warnings will be communicated to the student and his/her respective instructor via e-mail.
  • The CWRL explicitly reserves the right to suspend the lab accounts of repeat student abusers who have not heeded prior warnings.

Print Retrieval Procedure

The student will approach the printer located by the proctor station and wait for the proctor to examine the printed sheets and pass them over to him or her.

General Tips for Reducing Print Waste:

Print Preview:
This is an indispensable feature offered by many applications installed in our CWRL lab computers. Use this feature to view your pages prior to printing. Many mistakes can often be seen and corrected before ever printing out a single sheet.

Print Multiple Pages to a Single Sheet
Many applications allow you to print more than one page to a single sheet. This saves considerable amount of toner and paper. For example, a document that may normally require 20 sheets to print might only require 5 sheets, if 4 pages are printed on one sheet. This makes most sense when you are printing out class notes or a powerpoint presentation.

Print What You Need
It is often more convenient to print out an entire document or a webpage when you only need a small section of it. Utilize the “Print Preview” feature of most applications to identify the pages containing the content you actually require and then selectively print only those pages.

Print Preventively
Before you print, make sure that you are printing the right version of the document in the correct orientation. Refrain from printing excessive numbers of drafts with minimal changes.

Common examples of how to conserve printing resources at the labs can be seen here. Feel free to ask lab proctors on duty for other ways to save printing resources or to elaborate on the methods, guidelines, or procedures mentioned above.