New all-in-one printing service coming to Concordia

Students will now be able to do without Concordia printing cards and upload printing funds straight onto their student ID cards.
The university is introducing a new all-in-one photocopying, scanning and printing service called DPrint, which enables students to do all three tasks using a single multifunctional device. Once funds have been loaded to their accounts via the cash loaders on campus, students can log into one of the devices and begin to print, scan or copy.
Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota said the objective is to offer a centralized, efficient and environmentally-friendly service to students.
“Ultimately the goal is to be able to provide students with a one-stop shopping experience and hopefully a very positive one,” said Mota.
In order to start using the system, students only need a valid Concordia student ID and a netname and password. An additional new feature is the ability for students using Concordia’s Wi-Fi network to send print jobs from their personal laptops or any other computer on campus.
“If you print from a lab on Loyola campus and you have a class downtown, instead of having to go to that one machine to pick up your job, you can pick it up in the Hall building where your next class is,” explained David Babcock, a Digital Store customer service representative.
Preserving credit on old print cards will be a matter of transferring leftover funds to the student account. This account is strictly attached to printing services and is entirely separate from student fees and tuition accounts.
Another feature of the service is letting students go over the available credits if the job requires more than what is left in the account, instead of cutting off in the middle of the job. The outstanding credit will then be taken when the card is loaded up again.
The implementation process has run into some glitches however, as was to be expected, said Mota, considering the scale of the project.
“I liked the old system, it was easy to use,” said Stephanie Saucier, a second-year contemporary dance student. “The new service was user-friendly too — when it was working. I think this is a normal period of adaptation,” she said.
DPrint was being tested at SGW campus and ran into some issues, notably with computer drivers crashing. Mota advised students to keep using the debit printing cards until the DPrint service is “proven to be reliable and fully supported.”
DPrint has not yet been implemented on the Loyola campus.
“They’re not going to make any drastic changes at this point because they want to get through the exam periods where people have massive use requirements,” said Mota. “So rather than push the implementation full speed ahead right now, they’re going to let those departments that are still using the old system get through the crunch and then they will really begin working towards solving the problems,” she said.
The target goal is to get through the busiest periods and by September 2012 have the service fully functional across the university.