After abuse reports, no more canceling print jobs

Following a restructuring of the University’s printing system, students are no longer able to cancel print jobs, whether they seek to cancel a botched job or are just looking to print for free.

In the past, students looking to minimize printing costs could cancel print jobs on University printers at the last second, skirting the $0.10 per page printing fee. But in response to the increasingly frequent use of the loophole first acknowledged by the University last spring, Stanford Academic Computing Services has now disallowed the canceling of any print jobs that have begun printing in library or computer cluster printers.

ANASTASIA YEE/The Stanford Daily

Designed to allow students to cancel print jobs with bad print feeds or streaky toner, the old printing system did not charge students for their print jobs if they canceled them before printing was complete. But staff in Academic Computing Services became suspicious that students were abusing this feature of the print system after they noticed a high number of canceled print jobs last year.

“Unfortunately, some students began taking advantage of this [feature] to cancel jobs after they had begun printing, merely to avoid being charged, even though there was nothing wrong with the printouts,” wrote head of Academic Computing Technology Services Surajit Bose in an e-mail to The Daily.

One student canceled 52 print jobs and another six students canceled more than 20 print jobs each in March, Bose told The Daily in April.

After some consultation with residential computing consultants (RCCs), Academic Computing Services decided something had to be done. Bose said Academic Computing Services chose to forego the cancel option when configuring this year’s system in light of the abuses.

“This means, sadly, that students who do experience streaky toner, torn paper or other such problems will have to contact their RCCs or library staff to initiate a refund for damaged jobs,” Bose said. He reported that SULAIR has processed fewer than five refunds this academic year.

Word about the tighter policy has been getting around. After a question was raised during a discussion at RCC training this fall, RCCs were instructed to tell their residents it would no longer be possible to cancel print jobs.

“One of the people leading the discussion [during RCC training] said we should tell people that they can’t do that,” said Durand RCC Chris Anderson ’11.