A new printing system has been the subject of widespread complaint from students, culminating in the April 4 failure of its Fisher library component.
SydPay has been rolled out across the University this year, to replace the current Unikey and other printing systems. It aims to mimic the functionality of an Opal card for students.
“I don’t even know how to use it, let alone actually print anything,” said third year student, Grace Kim.
“The University’s existing print/copy cards – including Extro (UniKey payment), Monitor, Bear and Unicard will be phased out as part of implementing the SydPay system during Semester 1,” a University spokesperson explained.
Some members of library staff were more optimistic than others. “I do prefer the Unikey system – it’s been used effectively for over 10 years, but eventually the new printing system should be better,” said a member of staff from the Information and Communications Technology helpdesk.
Science student Tayler Wishart was particularly frustrated by her experience.
“After accepting my printing job and taking my money, it never printed my document. I was in the library for another 8 hours, and it just never printed anyone’s work. As a general library population, we agreed to just stop attempting to print on it,” she said.
Honi understands there is no refund process currently in place for instances where students have unsuccessfully attempted to print.
One student reported a forty-page exam can be printed (double sided) in less than two minutes using a Unikey printer, but took in excess of fifteen minutes for a SydPay printer.
“SydPay was introduced as a means of replacing…four systems with one simple account for print and copy services and putting it all onto your student card, for convenience,” a University spokesperson said.
Honi received no response from the University about the reasons for system failure.
“I dread the day that they get rid of them [the Unikey printers] – people won’t be able to print anything. It’ll be such a mess,” said Wishart.