Open University IT issues mean students cannot see degree results

Students were meant to be able to access their results on Monday, but IT issues caused some delays

An IT issue meant some students were unable to access their Open University (OU) degree results for several hours.

The Milton Keynes-based institution said its StudentHome system started having problems on Monday evening, but they were resolved by midday.

Creative writing graduate Adam Taylor said it was "frustrating", with it taking 14 hours to get his result.

The OU apologised for the problems, saying: "We know how important results are."

The StudentHome portal is where students access their grades and modules.

The OU said on Twitter on Monday: "We're aware of issues on StudentHome preventing people from accessing their results and are working to resolve this as an urgent priority.

"We know how important results are and apologise for this issue."

The Milton Keynes-based Open University has educated more than two million people

Mr Taylor said he received an email at 16:00 BST on Monday to access his degree result, but he was unable to log on until 06:00 on Tuesday.

"It's frustrating. I last tried it at 23:00 and then at 06:00 when I woke up.

"Why didn't they just email us our results instead of having to log in?"

Psychology student Bec Jasper, from Suffolk, said it took her several hours to access her latest module results.

"It's been frustrating not being able to find out my results following an email to say they had been published," she said, adding that "fees aren't cheap".

A spokesman for the OU said its teams "worked through the night" to resolve the issues.

"We sincerely apologise to any student who has been affected," he said.

On Twitter, OU said it would monitor the situation closely, with scheduled IT maintenance cancelled.