MyStudentRecord Websitr crashes!

This afternoon around 3pm, the MyStudentRecord, the only website that contains student personalised timetable and exam results crashed. No one, even the staffs could log in. This happened right after the announcement that the last semester’s exam results were out and everyone tried to log in at the same time.
First time during my 3 year studying at University of Leicester, this happens. And now, 11pm on a friday night, the website is still down. Some friends of mine are on the edge of a nervous breakdown because they haven’t had a chance to look at their grades before the crash. This is our final year and with the extreme grade pressure, you could understand the frustration. Some of us have to use this results to apply for postgraduate course and this exam result also affects the possibility of a graduate job offer.

What bothers me most is the fact that the problem of high demand should have been anticipated. Everyone wants to know their results as soon as they are out and if there are 1000 students taking the economic exams, you should expect the same amount of people trying to log in during the first hour of result release. I’m not an IT expert but for me, it sounds like the problem could have been avoided with better website management, especially for such an important website like MyStudentRecord. Earlier this year, the website has been upgraded with better layout and design which is just fantastic. Yet I wonder is it the new website not working properly since we didn’t have this problem last year?

Although we are very disappointed with the incidence, we are also very understanding in a sense that any website would crash under high demand. And to be honest, the situation has been notified and taken under control fairly quickly. Even though it has not been resolved, it’s great to know that around half 3pm, the IT service of the department already started to look at the problem. Also, the progress can also be viewed on the university website. To be fair, it’s a friday afternoon and we could totally understand the delay in resolving the problem.