Sidmouth College uses a programme called PaperCut to manage all 60 networked printers and photocopiers in and around the school. Students are given ‘£3.00’ of printer credit a week which enables them to print 30 A4 Black & White sheets or 6 A4 colour sheets to available devices. If students require more printing credit to print out school work or coursework then they can see their teacher who can give them printing vouchers – these come in ‘£10.00’ denominations and pupils can add these to their printing account. To do this, they can click ‘Details…’ on the balance screen which appears in the top right hand corner of their screen when they log-on. This will then prompt for their log on details again – once signed in, select ‘Redeem card’ and enter the unique alphnumeric sequence displayed on the card.
Colour printing is generally restricted and such documents are held in a queue which can only be released by teachers subject to verifying its appropriateness. The colour printing restriction combined with document printing limits means that the college can save energy and cut back on wasted paper and ink through unnecessary printing.
Not only does PaperCut provide this useful ‘end’ functionality, it also helps reduce down-time by alerting the Network Support Team of any printer failures or low toner levels which could inhibit staff and pupil productivity.