‘It’s just disappointing’: Lincoln students on the universities continued admin issues

‘My timetable changed whilst I was in a seminar, so I was now sitting in the wrong seminar’


The students at the University of Lincoln have had a hard first week back to teaching after the new systems put in place to help with attendance and timetables had some issues. Students faced problems registering their attendance to lessons with the system saying they had no sessions available to input the attendance code, leaving them to have to ask their lecturers to mark them as being in the classes after the session.

Student’s timetables were also a cause for concern at the start of the week with many turning up to their expected sessions alone or with the wrong people due to the timetables saying the incorrect room number or giving a different time. This resulted in students missing lectures or turning up to the wrong ones leaving them feeling unhappy with how the semester started.

The university did respond to concerns through a spokesperson who said: “We know all students want to start the new academic year with confidence and we apologise for any difficulties they may have encountered.

“This summer the University introduced a new student management software system. Certain processes, like timetables, do depend on the new technology and students can be assured that our teams are working hard to resolve any remaining issues some students might be having.”

‘It just makes me feel quite embarrassed to be honest’

Hannah Styring is a third year clinical psychology student who experienced problems with logging her attendance for the first few days. She said: “I’ve had issues with the new attendance system as it keeps saying that I have no lecture to register my attendance for even though I’m in one so I’m having to write down my student number at each lecture and give it to my lecturer.

“It just makes me feel quite embarrassed to be honest as I felt like all eyes were on me for an issue that obviously isn’t even my fault. I’m a bit disappointed that the year has started off so turbulently already as I’m a third year and I wanted things to start smoothly.”

‘It makes me nervous in case I don’t get counted on the system’

The problems have been affecting students at each stage of their university life from first years all the way to students doing their Master’s like Abbie Laycock. She is completing her Master’s in creative writing and has been in Lincoln for over four years now. For her the unneeded issues are still causing feelings of nervousness.

She said: “For me it’s kind of just annoying when you’re sitting in your first class of the year and the attendance system won’t load. It makes me nervous in case I don’t get counted on the system, but my lecturers have been super helpful and handed round paper for us to write our names on. That kind of defeats the object of having it online anyway though!”

‘My timetable changed 10 minutes after I had got to my seminar’

Olivia Starkin is a second year student studying English and she’s had issues with her timetable along with many others. She said: “Mine and a lot of other students’ timetables have been updating and putting us in the wrong places, it’s just disappointing.

“My timetable changed 10 minutes after I had got to my seminar, so I was now sitting in the wrong seminar. Luckily I’m a second year so it’s not as distressing but I imagine it would definitely be worse for a first year.”

‘It was very frustrating’

Louie Reed is a first year student who studies animation and visual effects, he has just started university. For him this was far from the ideal first week he had in mind as he found the timetabling issues hard to navigate.

He said: “On my first few days my timetable kept changing so I was supposed to be turning up to nine o’clock classes when it was telling me to be at afternoon ones and even then I couldn’t put in my attendance code because the university thinks I’m in the afternoon lesson but the timetable changes mean I’m in the morning one so it was very frustrating.”

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