Concerned about green disposal of electronic waste, the Environmental Club, college eco reps, and IT ambassadors met in mid-October to brainstorm ideas on how to merge student e-waste recycling with Rice’s computer hardware disposal process. The hardware that IT and Facilities Engineering and Planning (FE&P) manage through their disposal process is any equipment containing memory or data.

Currently, Rice faculty and staff contact the IT Help Desk and an IT support staff member arranges pick up for their e-waste.  The equipment is wiped clean to ensure no Rice data remains, then the hardware is shipped to a central location where it is sorted for sale (on Rice Classifieds), recycling, or salvage.  Vendors pick up pallets of the sorted hardware for appropriate disposal.

The Environmental Club and eco reps plan to hold a student e-waste drive in the future.  Although IT Ambassadors are not allowed to take delivery of e-waste,  they will help promote the event via email, college meetings, and Facebook.  Carlyn Chatfield, Manager for IT Technical Communications, supervises the IT Ambassadors and explained the restriction.  “IT student workers are not allowed to accept delivery of university or personal technology devices except inside the IT Help Desk, where a release form is completed and the equipment is secured while it is being backed up or diagnosed for problems.”

Stay tuned; your college eco rep, the Environmental Club, or your IT Ambassador will be making announcements soon.

Rice University’s student printing charges increased for the first time in 10 years. The penny per page increase (to $0.07) per page, took place on September 15, 2015. What factors affected the price change?

Fondren Library houses printers central to all of Rice's campus

1108 More Owls

Ten years ago – in the 2003-04 academic year – Rice enrolled 2857 undergraduates; the 2013-14 undergraduate enrollment had risen to 3965.  More students (1108 more) led to more colleges, more printers, more paper, and more ink and toner.  Although the undergraduate student enrollment grew by 39% in 10 years, IT kept printing charges at their 2003-04 levels by extending the life of each printer as long as possible, often until parts and supplies were no longer available.

Outsourcing Paper Delivery

To keep up with a growing campus population and rising paper costs, Rice University was forced to outsource its paper delivery source in January 2012. Ute Franklin, Rice’s Director for Delivery Services said her department used to sell paper internally to other Rice departments. “Now, we have  a procurement office that negotiates with preferred suppliers which allows the university to buy the paper cheaper,” she explained. The 10-year-old student print charge model proved insufficient to absorb the cumulative costs of a larger student population printing a greater volume of pages, regardless of the new paper prices.

After considering various changes to the print charge structure, the increase with the highest overall impact on revenue and the lowest individual impact to students was a penny per page for black-and-white letter-size pages.  IT retained the tradition of zero cost for a second side;  a duplex print job costs no more than a single-sided print job.

Printing Perks

Most students either use their own printer or pay to print in the labs, but engineers and athletes have access to student-specific departmental printers. At the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, design teams have access to printers for their projects: “Each design team is given a budget, you can print up to your budget for free in OEDK, but you can’t print for personal use,” explained Erika, a senior Mechanical Engineering student. Across campus, student-athletes have access to printers in their academic center. Ellen, a sophomore track and field athlete, says, “It’s nice to print at Tudor Field house without having to worry about the cost…I really appreciate the free printing at Tudor!”

Beautiful Duncan Hall is one of the many non-library buildings that offers printing for students in Duncan Hall 1064 as well as in the 3rd floor Computer Science Department!

Printing at Other Schools

Rice’s printing system is extremely student friendly, and relatively low cost, even with the penny increase.

• Harvard – $0.05 for a single page, $0.06 for duplex
• Yale – $0.10 per single page,  $0.12 for  duplex
• Stanford – $0.10 per page
• MIT – $0.10 per page; quota 3000 pages per year
• Cornell – $0.09 per page
• Unconventionally Cheap: Even with the price increase, Rice’s $0.07 per page is relatively inexpensive. For instance, a Cornell graduate recalled paying $0.09 per page, and Kat, currently a Vanderbilt sophomore, says she “pays ten cents per page.”

• Unconventionally Easy: As long as Rice students are logged into the Rice network, they can send their work to any public lab printer and simply pick it up. At universities with web print (also called cloud print) systems,  students must swipe their card when they arrive at the printer to obtain their document. Since Rice students do not need to swipe, a little extra time can be saved during that morning “print and rush to class” time crunch.

• Unconventionally Accessible: Rice’s college system provides a network of printers across campus. At many universities, undergraduate students must trek to the library or the student center to print their assignments. At Rice, students have access to printers in every college lab, Fondren Library, Anderson Hall, Mudd Lab, Abercrombie Lab, Baker Institute, Butcher Hall, Duncan Hall, Sewall Hall, as well as the RMC (Rice Memorial Student Center).  For instructions on how to map your personal computer to various lab printers, see the Do It Yourself (DIY) tutorial in docs.rice.edu:  https://docs.rice.edu/confluence/x/RQTNAQ.

• Unconventionally Green: The duplex deal is one of a kind. Rob, a University of Florida sophomore, says, “Black and white printing costs $0.10 per page at all libraries…Double-sided pages are charged as two pages.” However, Rice allows students to print duplexes for the price of a single page – which is a good deal for students and the environment alike.

While the price of printing has increased slightly,  the convenience and ease of printing for undergraduates at Rice should outweigh the cost. For more details about printing, visit docs.rice.edu: https://docs.rice.edu/confluence/x/RIRV.

Joe ITguy is posing with Marc Scarborough, the IT Security Officer at Rice.

This summer, Joe ITguy steps out of Facebook and into various locales around the world.  Students will be taking a copy of Joe with them on their summer adventures, much like the Flat Stanley project popular among elementary school children.  Joe ITguy connects with Rice University’s undergraduate students on Facebook.  With about 2600 friends, including alumni, Joe sends “Happy Birthday” wishes and provides IT updates of interest to students.  To get a copy of Flat Joe, contact him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/joe.itguy OR stop by the Study Break hosted by Fondren Library and IT – 9-10PM Sunday night, May 4, first floor of Fondren near computers.

Over 20 undergraduate students work as Student Computing Consultants (SCCs) in the IT Help Desk.  The SCCs are trained and mentored as they troubleshoot issues on personal computers for other undergraduates, and sometimes graduate students, faculty, staff and retirees.  Sayra Alanis, a junior majoring in Hispanic Studies and the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, works as a supervisor in addition to her shift at the Help Desk.  Over the summer, Sayra worked with other SCCs, student workers in the IT Marketing team, and Diane Yee, the Assistant Director for Client Services, to completely revamp the self-help documentation on docs.rice.edu.  Accumulated over five years with contributions by IT staff and SCCs, the old collection of wiki pages contained current information along with outdated information and duplicate information, all adding to a confusing tangle of content.  Released in July, the new IT-DIY (do it yourself) pages had been reviewed, revised, rewritten, and organized under relevant categories and included cross-posting notices with links to the single page of instructions for a particular service or device set up.

“SCCS are a valuable resource for Rice University and Rice IT department.  SCCS are Undergraduate students with diverse backgrounds and majors who provide technical support services – assisting with Rice account management, email network connectivity, printing and Owl Space.  Additionally, the Help Desk provides extra services for Rice Undergraduates – troubleshooting devices;  virus removal; data recovery and restore; and Operating system support functions.” said Diane Yee, of the SCCs.

One unique way IT reaches out to students is through Joe ITguy, a Facebook presence begun in 2008.  Joe connects with current undergraduates, reaches out to incoming students, and sends happy birthday messages to his 2,600 friends, some of whom are now alumni.  Joe represents student perspectives and he is managed by student workers in the IT Marketing & Communications team. Joe ITguy joins official Rice Facebook groups and promotes IT messages and alerts, and he shows up at opportune moments for photo shoots.

For three years, IT has been communicating with undergraduates through student employees with the result that more undergraduates recognize where to direct questions and get support for their technology issues.  Student liaisons in each college, called IT Ambassadors, help promote IT messages like changing passwords and checking printing charges before they are sent to Cashier’s Office.

“Daniel Imas, known by Lovetteers affectionately as “DImas,” keeps all of us up to date and up to speed on changes, warnings, new information and opportunities with IT. If he doesn’t know something he will find out who does!” said Lovett College Coordinator, Sharon O’Leary, of Lovett College’s IT Ambassador, Daniel Imas.

However, IT Marketing & Communications team realized one group of undergraduate students were not being reached due to their unique situation.  Student athletes often arrive on campus well before O-Week and are immediately immersed in summer courses. Football player Michael Sam was recruited to be the first IT Ambassador for Student Athletes in May and began working as a liaison between IT and Julie Griswold, Associate Director for Academic Advising for Athletes at Rice.  Michael arranged study breaks (see page 12), outlined pertinent ‘getting started’ tips for fliers, created short videos on how to clear holds and get IT assistance, and distributed email messages to support new student athletes arriving for summer courses.

Begun as an undergraduate student outreach channel, Joe ITguy is still popular with his 2600 friends. Although he has not friended every undergraduate student at Rice, he wishes all his friends “Happy Birthday” with a fun photo. Joe also shows up for photoshoots at IT Events and has posed with President Leebron. When the IT Ambassadors for each residential college discuss how to best communicate updates in IT services and support to their peers, Joe ITguy remains at the top of their list of tools and channels.  Joe will be making many new friends as soon as the in-coming first year students set up their Rice email addresses in May and June.

Connect with Joe on Facebook.