Results Day Ruckus

Once again, results day has turned into the online equivalent of the Summer Riots, with just as many broken laptop screens as JD Sports windows.

Thousands of you will have been spending the day frantically hitting the F5 key as if it was the abort button on a nuclear bomb, causing the uni servers to collapse from chronic constipation.

And so, the obvious question is: why has it happened again?

At 1:00 p.m., the university finally admitted its servers were bunged up thanks to student’s relentless attacks on the servers:

‘We are experiencing technical difficulties with the Portal which means that exam results are unavailable and this problem is under urgent investigation.’

Surprise surprise. Clearly, the current system is, what’s technically termed, a load of bollocks. It has caused nothing but stress and anguish for the vast majority of students who have been eagerly waiting for weeks just to read a few numbers on a web page.

In this day and age, such a simple task would be manageable in the days of dial-up internet on a wooden computer that’s powered by a potato.

Two hours later, the university made another announcement that their solution was to ‘restrict the number of concurrent users of the service’.

Great. So even when they’ve got the servers back up and running, we are all still going to be waiting for another few hours as students are allowed in the portal on a ‘one in, one out’ basis. It’s basically as difficult to get into as Bopp on a Friday night.

But due to the university’s either total indifference to the matter or the fact the IT guys are to busy playing Solitaire, absolutely no attempt has been made to amend a system that is inefficient and inconvenient for everyone. The Tab emailed the university’s Information Services asking why there has been no change to the system, but they declined to answer – further demonstrating their lack of interest in the issue.

Now, is it just me, or does it seem like the whole problem could be easily resolved by just releasing the results in waves rather than leaving it as a free for all for students? For example, results of students with surnames beginning with ‘A’ get theirs at 9 a.m., ‘B’ comes half-an-hour later, and so on.

That way, there is no way for students like me setting up an auto-refresh to try and get their results first (which, by the way, hasn’t worked and might be part of the reason why Portland is now on fire… virtually).

Besides, what was ever wrong with pinning up a piece of paper on the department notice board, like back in the day when everything was black and white? In fact, what was ever wrong with that way of doing it in the first place?

Are students that adjusted to absorbing information through a computer that reading ink on paper might cause them to gawp in disbelief; moronically tapping the paper in an attempt to share it on Facebook like a cat whose seen a fly on the other side of a window.

But really, why the rush? If we could all just calm down for a second, please. Your results are going nowhere. Alright?  If you don’t get them today, the university won’t assume you don’t care and give you a 0.

Relax. We all know, deep down, that the best thing to do is to just forget about your results for a while and check back later when it’ll be less busy. So go put the kettle on or something so I can get my damn results.

Are you still banging your head against a wall whilst waiting for your results? Should the university revert to an old-school system of putting marks up on the notice board? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below! Or get involved by emailing us at [email protected]