Recently, University Printing and Copying services replaced the printing systems in all libraries and other public areas with a new interface. Though students can print from more devices under the new system, some students find it to be slower and more complex than the old one.
Kelly Hogg, University director of printing and copying services, said the new system was designed to offer students more options.
“We were experiencing frequent downtime with the older system which caused problems for students,” Hogg said in an email statement.
Now, Hogg said students now can print from their smartphones or tablets, as well as print from cloud storage services such as Dropbox or Google Drive, or print using a USB drive directly at the release station.
Similar to the previous system, Hogg said students can send their print job from anywhere and print from any of the 46 devices connected around Grounds.
Despite the new system’s increased flexibility, some students are frustrated with the new system’s speed and find it to be significantly slower than the old system.
Second-year College student Shreya Maini said she could print five separate documents and simply swipe her ID card once under the old system, but now she has to receive an email for each individual document.
“A printing job that would normally take me, I would say, three minutes took me 15 minutes because printing is incredibly slow and you have to have a different document ID for every single print job,” Maini said.
Fourth-year College student Grant Oxer had similar comments about decreased speed and efficiency of the new system. Specifically, Oxer said the old system was more intuitive, and that the new system requires more steps since students have to enter their Netbadge information and receive an email in order to print the document.
“It takes an outdated yet simple and intuitive process [and] it doesn’t [update] the process, and it makes it more convoluted and more complicated,” Oxer said.
Other students wondered why the change was made well into the semester without explanation.
Third-year College student Sara Dalpe Sanchez said the University should have changed the printing system at the beginning of the school year — if at all — because learning a new system caused her extra stress during midterms.
“You would think that students would have received an email from the University explaining the reasons for the change of the systems,” Dalpe Sanchez said in an email statement. “Or at least a tutorial on how to use the new printing system. The pamphlets near the computers at the library are super unhelpful.”
Fourth-year Engineering student Gary DePalo said the new system creates more issues than it solves.
“I think it is an example of U.Va solving a problem that isn't there,” DePalo said. “The time that it takes to install the new system and teach everybody to use the new system really doesn't serve a purpose especially when it's a month and a half into the school year.”
Despite some students perceiving the new system as slower and harder to use, others liked the idea of providing more options to students but simply wished the system worked more efficiently.
Second-year College student Rohan Ahluwalia said he would be happier with the new system if the Google Drive access it provides worked better with University email addresses.
“I think the new system is okay, honestly,” Ahluwalia said. “While it’s a nice idea, I don't think it's been implemented [correctly].”
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