Schools across all educational levels rely on printing. As education technology advances, printing-related policies need to change to remain reliable, efficient, and, importantly, sustainable. To keep up, campuses can consider a cloud print management solution.
Today, we’ll cover how cloud print management works and the many ways this technology can support how schools, colleges, and universities handle printing.
What is Cloud Print Management?
Cloud printing enables users to print documents from anywhere through a cloud-based service as long as they’re connected to the internet. While all providers vary slightly, the general process is as follows:
- Initiate Print Job: Students, staff, and teachers on or off campus can send a print request from their smartphones, tablets, or other devices to the most convenient printer.
- Send Data: The cloud system stores, captures, and encrypts the data before putting it in a queue.
- Complete the Print Job: The cloud software sends the data to the printer, and the printer completes the job.
This simple, streamlined process helps educators and students gain more control over their printing needs.
A cloud printing service can improve enterprise-level campus printing practices due to its ease, flexibility, and convenience. That, coupled with a secure system, gives administrators greater oversight of the organization’s printing habits.
The State of Printing in Education
Educational institutions are at a crossroads regarding campus printing solutions. While some schools are adopting primarily digital printing, research shows that there are benefits to retaining paper-based materials in education.
Balancing Digital and Paper Printing
Because educational institutions will undoubtedly rely on campus printing for parts of their curriculum, it is essential to find a solution that allows educators to balance the latest technology's benefits with current printing needs.
In the past, it was necessary to prioritize speed, reliability, and affordability when finding the right campus printing services, meaning that prioritizing one feature essentially deprioritized another. However, now that cloud printing is becoming more mainstream, educational institutions shouldn’t have to choose one of these benefits over the others.
7 Benefits of Cloud Print Management
Partnering with a managed print service provider to adopt the ideal campus printing solution offers various benefits for the educational sector.
1. Affordability
Cloud printing allows schools to reduce unnecessary costs associated with traditional printers, such as increased IT management costs and dedicated print servers. Campuses also save on printing costs by instilling greater control over who can print, how much, and how often.
2. Efficiency
“Find-me printing,” or pull printing, quickly provides the resources teachers and students need from multiple locations. Users can print to a centralized queue and then pick up the print job from any device. This also nicely complements any bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies in place.
3. Security
Cloud print management in education provides improved security measures to ensure the right people receive the correct print jobs. It does this through key elements like data encryption, user authentication, secure release print (a document is only printed once the user verifies their identity), and detailed audit trails.
It’s also crucial to secure data in the cloud and encrypt sensitive information as needed. Specifically, protecting FERPA-protected K-12 student information and proprietary course materials is essential for a cloud print management system in the education sector.
4. Scalability
Adopting cloud printing allows smaller educational institutions to scale up or down as needed while also supporting large, established schools. Adding and removing printers to the cloud-based systems doesn’t require too many additional IT resources because the process can be automated. A cloud-based system also fosters adaptability to the changing number of users and varying print volumes throughout the academic year.
5. Sustainability
Cloud-based printing is better for the environment and can reduce unnecessary resources, contributing to more considerable sustainability efforts. When cloud print management programs are in place, sustainable printing policies are easier to enforce. For example, educational institutions can adopt printing quotas and limit color printing in favor of grayscale printing.
6. Accessibility
Innovative campus printing technology allows students and teachers to access their print documents from anywhere within the cloud network, from any device. While cloud printing offers a centralized hub for all print jobs, the jobs are also distributed among multiple devices throughout the campus, reducing the risk of downtime.
Not all educational activities happen on campus. Cloud printing technology furthers remote learning by enabling students to submit and print assignments remotely, better collaborate on group projects, and access critical class information, such as study materials and practice exercises, more easily.
7. Simplicity
A cloud printing solution is easy to implement and maintain. Transitioning to serverless printing through a managed print service provider is simple, reducing the burden on education institutions and internal IT teams. This solution also eliminates unnecessary complexities, including extra server costs and specific hardware updates. Moreover, the IT staff can lighten their workload with automated updates and maintenance.
Find a Partner in Cloud Print Management
Finding the right campus printing solution for your organization is essential, and working with a trusted managed print service provider eliminates uncertainty. A solid management print service provider can implement a customized printing plan for your educational organization that meets all the requirements for success.
