PrintQ fund in development, tentatively planned for March
The fund for additional PrintQ allocations for students who have exceeded their limit on campus is coming close to fruition.
A joint project between the Student Government Association and Office of Information Technology, SGA president Brittany Mouzourakis said OIT may give up to $10,000 per semester for the fund, depending on student demand.
“We did meet with (vice president of Information Technology and chief information officer) Roger Rehm ... about creating a system for allocation requests,” Mouzourakis, a Garden City senior, said. “Basically, Roger Rehm has promised us up to $10,000 for allocations for this semester.”
Kole Taylor, technical writer at OIT, said the requests for additional printing allocations will be handled through a website built on Microsoft SharePoint, the same foundation on which iCentral is built.
"One of the benefits ... is that SharePoint can access your data and autofill some things,” Taylor said. “One of our web developers is doing the heavy lifting.”
Muskegon senior Dave Breed, SGA vice president, said SGA and OIT met Wednesday to see a rough demonstration of the SharePoint website and to determine the criteria that will go on the application.
“They’ve pretty much got everything set (with the website),” Breed said. “We made little tweaks to what we were going to request.”
Although there is currently not a concrete timeline, Breed said SGA plans to have the system in place this semester.
“I would say it would probably be good to go no later than mid-March. No later than that,” Breed said.
Currently, undergraduates are allotted $10 worth of printing each semester and graduate students are given $15.
This new fund will allow students to apply for additional printing paid for by the university. Currently, any printing over the allotted quota is paid by the individual student.
"I know my guys who were in the meeting said it was a very productive meeting," Rehm said. "They're working with the SGA to determine what information they need to determine allocations."
Breed said although the applications are only open to individual students, instructors will be able to e-mail the PrintQ fund when they are teaching a print-heavy course, so the fund administrators will know those students have legitimate need if they apply.
Originally, the website was going to have one application for students and a second application for instructors to request extra printing for their entire class. Breed said the second application was nixed because of technical limitations.
