Julian Free, Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of Lincoln, has emailed students this afternoon apologising for the issues with Blackboard, as the site continues to experience issues just five days into the new academic term.

Vice Chancellor Julian Free said he is ‘extremely grateful’ students have been ‘so positive and supportive’ whilst Blackboard has been offline.

The news comes after it was revealed that the portal, used to access learning materials, has been put into a ‘test state’ after it became accessible on Wednesday evening

In his update, Mr Free said: “I would like to personally express my sincere apologies to all students for the inconvenience that the issues with the Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment have caused to our students this week.

“The University puts students at the heart of everything that we do and we have taken this issue extremely seriously. Our ICT team has been working around the clock and I have engaged at a senior level with our software provider in the US. They are now giving us extensive support to resolve the current problems and to ensure that these do not happen again.

Students have now been encouraged to log-on to Blackboard to test the site, in order for the university’s IT department to ‘confirm the system continues to perform with a higher number of users’.

Mr Free went on to add: “I am extremely grateful that our students have been so positive and supportive during this time and that the Students’ Union has worked so closely with us to express the views of their members frankly.

“Similarly I am grateful to our Lincoln academics who have done their utmost to support students during this time.”