Case Study: University of South Florida (USF)

See how USF made printing more accessible and affordable for students

About University of South Florida

Located in Tampa, FL, the University of South Florida (USF) boasts an enrollment near 50,000. As part of the school’s commitment to serving campus needs, students receive a daily print allowance.

"Students have faster, easier access to affordable printing services at more places across campus. We have structured, standardized print services that can be maintained economically."
Craig Woolley
Assistant Vice President: Information Technology
University of South Florida

Challenge

At the University of South Florida (USF) student-managed campus print center, every student received 40 free prints per day. This was a great way to save money, but it led to consistent overcrowding. Students would rather endure hour-plus waits than pay a small fee at a nearby location. In addition to the long lines, employees:

Manually searched each student’s name in a database, which added more time to the process.
Offered free prints to friends because there was little accountability.

On top of that, three different IT divisions managed coin-operated print labs. Each had its own machines, toners and paper. Instead of working with the student-run print center, the two entities battled each other for the same customers.

Since Ricoh already provided printers and copiers to USF, the school asked us to figure out how to curb excess free printing while expanding free print services to other labs.

Solution

Based on our analysis, we standardized all print devices in two installations. The first added 17 Ricoh copiers, printers and MFPs to the fleet, and the second added another 15 devices.

We also configured the printers with a driver that worked with an updated version of the school’s Pharos Systems software to monitor and assign chargebacks. The new system boasted several new features:

Users swiped their ID to access printer and copier capabilities.
Each student received $2.50 of free prints per day.
Students enjoyed increased information mobility, which allowed them to print to any device on the network.

Close up image of woman handing a printed document

Result

The lack of long lines was the most visible result of our efforts.

Students still receive affordable printing, but services are now more evenly distributed across campus. By working with IT and the student government, our solutions also led to a printing usage increase of 2.5 million documents (for a total of up to 10 million per year), reduced price-per-page costs due to new technology and fixed toner costs, and fewer devices (which led to space savings in print centers). They also enabled restrictions on unauthorized prints and more protection for those outputting sensitive documents. Two nearby colleges using Pharos heard about USF’s improvements and are looking at implementing a similar approach to handle their own pay-for-print campus networks.

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