Students will soon have more ways to print on campus, including, most likely, the option to add funds to printing accounts online. Photo by Keisuke Yoshimura.

This fall, students will have new ways to print and how to pay for additional printing on campus.

The only option for students to accumulate printing funds on campus is to purchase a uPrint card. Prior to uPrint cards, students could decide how much money they wanted to their U Card once their $8 printing allocation was used up by inserting dollar bills into a U Ca$h machine.

A uPrint card can be purchased in either $1, $5 or $10 denominations at various locations across campus. uPrint cards can be found at the U Card office in the Memorial Union, Chester Fritz Library, Harley E. French Library of the Health Sciences, Thormodsgard Law Library, and Student Account Services located in the second floor of Twamley Hall. Each location accepts cash. The U Card office also accepts checks and U Ca$h, and Student Account Services accepts checks. More uPrint card purchasing locations are scheduled to come soon.

This change is a sideeffect of UND’s decision to adopt a new printing software, according to Associate Director for the Center for Instructional Learning Technologies Joshua Jones. The old software system, Pharos UniPrint, was compatible with the U Ca$h machines located around campus.

“The reason for changing softwares was because the university wanted mobile printing and the current software system was too expensive to allow that. So a new software, Papercut, was chosen,” Jones said.

Wireless printing is still unavailable at UND, but it should be sometime this semester.

“In order to have wireless printing on campus, UND first has to tweak the wi-fi,” Jones said.

Papercut has brought some other changes to how students print.

Now, students do not need to name their print jobs and set a password. Instead, students just need to swipe their U Card, and the paper will print without having to use a name or password.

Also, students can now track how much printing money is left on their card by checking their balance at webprint.und.edu. Students can also track what they have printed and their environmental impact.

“I like how you don’t have to name print jobs anymore but I feel like the uPrint might be more complicated than U Ca$h,” UND student Hanna Dahlen said.

In the future, uPrint will not be the only method to add more printing money to your printing account.

According to Jones, UND is in the process of deciding whether or not to use the U Ca$h machine, where students can add money to their accounts directly. Another option is to allow students to load printing accounts with a debit or credit card.

However, uPrint cards are here to stay, along with whatever other method is chosen, just so students who may not have a debit or credit card are still able to buy additional printing.

“I would like to use a debit card because it would be so much easier to do it online,” Dahlen said.

The university is looking for feedback about printing and would like to hear more from the students on what they prefer.

“It’s more of hassle to the student to use uPrint cards,” sophomore Adam Thompson said. “I would prefer paying online, but I can see younger students wanting the machine. People these days don’t carry much cash, so if all you had was the machine you would be out of luck. Online would be much easier.”

For now, students will have to wait and see what the next development will be with printing.

“We just want what’s best for the students,” Jones said.

Ashley Marquis is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at ashley.marquis @my.und.edu