Though the new printing system has been the subject of controversy this year, Information Technology's (IT) mid-year results prove that it has lived up to its promise. The printing system decreased the amount of paper consumed while accommodating 94 percent of student demand.
According to Deputy Chief Information Officer Rebecca Sandlin, IT is "very happy" with that number.
"When we put the plan into place we hoped to take care of 82 percent of the student body, so 94 percent is pretty good," Sandlin said. "We based the 82 percent on a year's worth of numbers so students must be printing less already."
The 94 percent figure means that only 106 students exceeded their per-semester limit of 750 double-sided black-and-white print jobs.
This allotment, which was set by the Bowdoin Printing Group (BPG) based on last year's printing numbers, is higher than many of the College's peer institutions, according to Sandlin. Amherst College, for example, charges five cents per sheet and the fees appear on students' semester bill.
Of the 106 students who exhausted their allotment, only seven were from the Class of 2014.
"We're really looking at that class because it's the one class that didn't have free printing before," said Sandlin.
First year Matt Mathias supported this statement, saying that the printing allotment has not been an inconvenience. Despite owning his own printer, Mathias has been using the College's printers ever since he ran out of ink early in the semester.
"It's only a few cents, and I'm not close to running out," Mathias said.
While Sandlin acknowledged that it is possible to circumvent the system by using printers that do not require a card swipe, she also says that this is not a huge concern.
"There are printers on campus and in some labs where students can get free printing, but individual departments pay for that printing so I think they're probably going to want to prevent a waste of paper...[the departments] could ask for a swipe reader if they were concerned," Sandlin said.
Indeed, many departments do self-regulate. For example, while some printers used by students for visual arts assignments do not require a card swipe, students are expected to record their own printing activity and pay the department accordingly.
Sandlin said she was more concerned that students were not taking advantage of the measures designed to prevent them from over-paying for printing.
"One thing I do hope all students understand is that if a student is doing any kind of printing for a student organization, they should not be paying for [it]," she said. "Student organizations can use the account code for their organization and go to the copy center, and all of the departments have a printer card that they can give out to their student employees."
Additionally, only eight students have taken advantage of the one-time refund policy the BPG announced in October in response to student complaints about paying for print jobs that were lost or duplicated.
"If students print a document by mistake they can go over to the One-Card Office to get it reversed and get those pages put back in their account," Sandlin said.
IT has also replaced many of the public printers over winter break and added support for Windows 7. Although printer locations around campus have not changed, students will have to re-install the new printers on their computers before using them.