Results for first, second and third year medical exams were today released by the Registry, but a confusing and somewhat buggy new online system left many students believing they had passed their year, only to find out later that they had failed.
In the past, results have been released via email. This year, students were required to login to a new online system using their CID number and a random password emailed to them. It seems many students did not realise that this would be occurring, and ignored the somewhat vague email that provided their password and information about the new system.
Those students that could log in to the system were confronted with a confusing table; the exams taken were listed, but no scores were present. Below this was a line reading: “End of year result = pass”. Naturally, students took this to mean they had passed the year, as in the past they were informed of their overall result first, and scores were published later.
However, until the table was completely full of scores, the system would indicate that the student had passed. Once scores were added, some distressed students found they had in fact failed the year. Live! has been told that this problem affects first, second and third year medical students.
Have I passed or not?
Worse still, the results produced by the system were in some cases spurious. Some students were told they had failed one half of the exam, despite having passed the required number of ‘stations’, while others were erroneously informed that they had achieved a merit on the other part of the exam.
The situation was compounded by confusing emails sent out by the Registry; a number of third years who had passed were informed they were required to resit part of the exam.
The release of the results in the late afternoon meant that by the time students had figured out that the online system was being used, the Registry staff had already left for the weekend.
The system itself has now been taken down for maintenance (though it is not known if this is a result of these flaws) and will not be available until Monday morning. The logic of taking down the system at this time is somewhat questionable, as students are only just beginning to discover that their initial indication that they had passed the year may be false.
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