AN INTERNET failure at a Scottish university which led to students complaints over an ability to complete vital course work and the cancellation of a few classes has finally been fixed after being out for nearly three days.
The disruption meant that students at the University of the West of Scotland could not access study materials through Moodle course support network, and some complained that it had caused issues in preparing for exams and meeting deadlines for essays and assignments.
The university told students that the problems with their Vodafone-powered network were the result of damage to "a group of cables in the Glasgow area" and that several local institutions were affected.
At one point the university, which came equal 73rd in the Top 100 for user satisfaction in the National Student Survey warned that the disruption would be unable to pay Discretionary and Childcare Fund financial aid payments due on Wednesday because of the impact on its IT systems.
Later the university, which has campuses in Paisley, Hamilton, Dumfries and Ayr said this would be paid on Thursday.
But students became frustrated at the time taken to fix the issues on social media.
Yvonne Howie wrote on Sunday: "So Moodle has been down all day Sunday and it's still down at 0730 today. Not great if, like myself and many others, you had an assignment to submit by midnight Sunday. No stress whatsoever. Shocking."
Aimee Boyle added: "Hopefully it can get sorted soon because people have deadlines... or hopefully lecturers will give extensions on the deadlines at least."
Yvonne Meek said: "Yeah ok, soooo can we tell our lecturers we are working towards completing our essays and will hopefully have them uploaded in due course? When deadlines are here???"
A University of the West of Scotland spokesman said: "At this stage in the trimester, there are no group exams taking place on the campuses, and where classwork was due for submission, local arrangements have been made between tutors and students to allow them to submit work accordingly.
"Only a few classes were affected by the outage, where online access had been required for materials, and again local arrangements will be made between lecturers and students for the class hours and content to be recovered.
"While this disruption was a systems fault of our suppliers and outwith the University’s control, the University fully appreciates the co-operation and patience of our students and staff as this issue was dealt with.”
Vodafone were approached for comment.
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