All Hill learning centers switch to Wepa printing kiosks

Printing kiosks have replaced all printers in learning centers on the Hill as of Friday.

UCLA Residential Life replaced the old printers in all of the residential learning centers with Wepa printing kiosks, which allow students to print files uploaded from cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox. There will be no changes to the printers in the Student Technology Center in Covel Commons, said UCLA spokesperson Rebecca Kendall.

The university installed several Wepa kiosks in learning centers on the Hill in January and in Ackerman Union in July.

Kendall added Hill residents received $5 credit on their Bruin Cards to use the Wepa printers and will receive an additional $5 credit at the beginning of each fall quarter from now on.

Kendall said Residential Life decided to switch exclusively to Wepa printers because they are available 24 hours a day and can be used without assistance from learning center staff.

Students have mixed responses about the new printers.

Ruby Perez, a first-year mathematics/applied science student, said she thinks having Wepa printers on the Hill is a good idea. She added she would have kept the old printers because she was used to them but will use the Wepa printers if they are the only options available.

Marieme Diallo, a first-year political science student, said she thinks only having the printing kiosks is a good idea in theory but taking away the old printers limits people’s options.

“If UCLA wants to be more accessible to people they should add more options, not take them away,” Diallo said.

Hana Pareja, a second-year mathematics student, said one of her friends had a bad experience with a Wepa printer because the printer took a long time to load the file, so Pareja does not use them. She added she will find other places on campus to print instead.

Kendall said Residential Life will continue to monitor the Wepa kiosks to see how to improve printing on the Hill.