Big Ten Conference Brings In-plants to Ohio State

Almost 80 in-plant representatives attended the 38th annual Big Ten Printing and Copyright Conference.

This article was based on summaries provided by Sandy Komasinski and Don Roberts. Photos were taken by Bill LaBounty.

In-plants curious about the differences between Xerox, Kodak NexPress and HP Indigo high-speed color printers, got an insider's point of view at the recent Big Ten Printing and Copyright Conference, hosted by Ohio State University and organized by Don Roberts, assistant director of University Retail Services.

In-plant users of each technology related their experiences in a candid session that was the highlight of this year's conference. The panel featured:

• Jeff Dible, from Ohio State University, which uses a NexPress 2100.

• Barb Childers, from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which has a Xerox iGen3.

• Sandy Komasinski, of Purdue University, which recently added an HP Indigo press.

Komasinski moderated the discussion, which was effectively a sequel to a panel she organized for Big Ten 2003 at Purdue, during which representatives of the same three vendors shared the podium. This time, users had the floor. To show what their machines could do, each had printed the identical color document. Copies were distributed to the audience for comparison.

Users revealed that their choice of equipment was directly proportional to the service/support of a vendor in their area.

For the University of Illinois and Purdue, going to a digital color production printer was a logical next step. Each had both offset and quick copy capabilities. For Ohio State, this was the first step into the digital, variable data world.

Since staff at the University of Illinois and Purdue was familiar with the digital world, file management was business as usual. Purdue chose to train one press person and one copy enter person as key operators due to the many press components on the Indigo. Each panel member said their vendor provided adequate training and on-site follow up. They said that up to an hour of maintenance is required each day.

Panelists said finishing requirements for digital press jobs are different than for offset work. Ohio State is now looking into new finishing equipment to complement the work produced on its NexPress 2100.

All said they were pleasantly surprised with their success at loading their machines with paper right before the end of a shift and letting them run until the next operator arrived. All three reported being pleased with their choice of equipment.

Workflow Report

As in past years, Big Ten was divided into a printing track and a copyright track. One session in the printing track covered workflow. Daniel Tenke from EFI stressed that online job submission is the only way for an in-plant to remain profitable.

"If it's easy for the user, they will use it," he said.

Lisa Katze from Xerox spoke about Xerox's FreeFlow workflow strategy and the automation it provides. This product offers enhanced thumbnails, enhanced report generation and automatic ticketing, among other features.

Steve Sielinski from Canon USA discussed Canon's Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP). Adam Roberts from Lanier spoke specifically about electronic forms management using Lanier PDC, a variable data forms automation application featuring intelligent zones.

Panelists also discussed the industry's move from PDF to JDF (job definition format), and attendees were encouraged to ask their vendors if they are JDF-ready/compliant.

A session on variable data printing by Delys Nast, of Kodak NexPress, covered the benefits of variable data in impacting the decisions of consumers.

Document Management

Steve Mullins, of Ohio State University, and Jim Welch, of 3SG Corp., spoke about Ohio State's Document Management Services, which is the centralized electronic document management (EDM) provider for the university. It hosts the software and severs, and provides all maintenance and training. The presentation dealt with EDM in higher education and how to get a program started, including the scanning of old documents.

Ohio State's Document Management Services can retrieve documents in three to five seconds, and multiple people can access the same documents at the same time. 3SG's Jim Welch spoke about his company's high-quality, fast scanning and indexing.

Copyright Issues

The copyright segment of the conference covered such topics as:

• Updates planned and carried out by the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to streamline obtaining copyright permission.

• A demonstration of Alto Imaging software, used to obtain copyright permission from CCC and to create, change and store course packet information.

• An overview of copyright history, current issues and future considerations for universities and libraries.

• The challenges in-plants face in obtaining copyright clearance and educating those who use copyrighted material for course packets.

• Different ways universities can set up licenses to clear up grey areas of use.

Next year's Big Ten conference will take place September 26-29, hosted by the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.