A LEADING Scottish university has suspended the use of a £14million online registration system after students were unable to access it.
Glasgow University has closed the controversial MyCampus programme until Monday to conduct tests. Officials said the system was now working, but that giving staff extra time would help ensure no more errors occurred.
By next week, the full student support team will be on campus to provide advice and assistance for those who require it.
The suspension comes after students were unable to register for courses on Wednesday, when the system went live.
It is understood the fault has been pinpointed to a server which crashed because it was unable to deal with the volume of registrations.
A university spokeswoman said: "We have experienced technical difficulties with our registration system and would like to apologise to students affected.
"We urgently investigated the problem and believe we have resolved it. We are now rigorously testing the system. Until we are confident registration can continue without difficulties, we have closed the system."
The university said it will contact students to tell them when they can access MyCampus. It stressed no-one would be disadvantaged by the delay.
The situation is embarrassing for the university because a similar problem arose last year.
Then, thousands of students called a university helpline to complain about glitches that left them unable to register for courses following the introduction of the MyCampus system.
Students were enrolled for the wrong degree or told compulsory classes were full. Others said web links were not working. Some tutors told them to ignore the system and simply turn up at the correct classes, while others wrote out timetables by hand.
After the debacle, computer experts warned the disruption could be repeated this year because of flaws in the system.
An email summarising the view of computer science specialists described the controversial system as "unintuitive, riddled with errors and extremely difficult to use".
It added: "This is not a teething problem and therefore likely to recur every year."
The MyCampus system is designed to support students throughout their studies and has already been adopted by Cambridge, Queen's University Belfast and Derby University.
The university said it allows students to enrol and select course options online, as well as paying fees. The information can then be used to analyse key statistics such as applications, exam performance and retention rates.
MyCampus was installed to replace the existing in-house system WebSurf.
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