University systems go down the weekend before exams start

By Zoë Crowther, Students' Union Correspondent

Some University systems, including Eduroam and Blackboard, experienced severe issues starting early this morning (18 May 2019) and continuing into the afternoon.

Students attempting to study on campus were affected by the lack of network access, with many revising for exams which start on Monday.

Nina Bryant, a final year Psychology student, said: 'It is definitely bad timing that the services were down the weekend before exams. Students in the library were having to use their iPhones as hotspots for their laptops, and the uncertainty of not knowing when Blackboard would be available was definitely disruptive to mine and many other students’ revision.'

Others took to social media to express their discontent:

At 12:43 pm the University of Bristol sent an email to students: 'Very early this morning the University experienced an issue affecting our network.  This affected access to all online and networked services hosted at the University, including telephony.

'The exact cause is currently unknown.  We are continuing to investigate the cause. Staff in IT Services have been working to resolve the issue and services are now back but we are monitoring the situation. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.'

Despite the University announcing in the email that services had been restored, some students have reported that they were still unable to access Eduroam as late as 2 pm.

You can find updates on the IT status page http://itstatus.bristol.ac.uk/.

If you continue to have issues, you can contact the IT Service Desk on out of hours phone service 0117 428 2100 or email service-desk@bristol.ac.uk.

Featured Image: Facebook / Bristruths