‘ System error’ blamed for e- mails to students cancelling graduations
● University forced to apologise after messages sent in the middle of night
Hundreds of university students were sent an e-mail in the middle of the night telling themtheir graduation was cancelled.
The message was sent at 12:30 am yesterday to philosophy, psychology and l anguage science students as well as those studying geography, informatics and law at Edinburgh University.
Fourth year philosophy and english languages tudent Rose Bentley was home in Leek, Staffordshire, when she got the alert. “I was sitting up in bed at the time,” said the 23- year-old.“I was incomplete and utter panic an dr an through to my gran.”
She said thee-mail looked genuine and, with two results outstanding, feared the worst.
“I felt physically sick ,” she said. “The idea of four years of work completely di sappeared.”
Ms Bentley phoned her department yesterday morning to be told by staff they knew nothing about it.
She eventually got a reply advising that the e - mail “did not come from us” and should be ignored.
A clarification e - mail from the university’ s administration director was sent yesterday morning telling students to ignore the e- mail.
It read: “We are aware that a numberof final-year students have receive dane-mail, apparently from the university, in forming them that their graduation has been cancelled.
“Please ignore this message. No graduations have been cancelled. Your final degree results will be released in line with the published schedule.”
A further update added: “We would like to apologise unreservedly for any stress that this error has caused you at what we know is a stressful time.”
Fourth year philosophy student Conor Matchett, 22, said: “The apology is welcome butthe timing oftheo riginal e- mail couldn’t have been worse.
“It said to contact the university immediately with any questions but at 12: 30am there was nobody picking up the phone to contact.”
A university spokeswoman said :“Our preliminary investigation suggests that these e-mails were regrettably issued as a result of a system error. There was no breach of our systems and no student data was compromised. The university has written to all students affected to reassure them that their graduations have not been cancelled.”