DENTON – Josh Ingram and other Texas Woman's University criminal justice students gathered around his laptop Wednesday afternoon on campus, unable to believe the information Ingram had accessed.

The 24-year-old junior discovered an online loophole where he could look up any student record he wanted through the university's Degree Audit Report System. And Ingram thought he had the ability to change grades with the help of a drop-down menu.

But TWU officials said Friday that no one ever had the ability to change grades and no identifying information was in jeopardy.

The Degree Audit Report System isn't the university's official record, but it is a copy for students to track their degree completion, said a university official. The loophole discovered this week gave students access to the adviser's portion of the report system, said Robert Placido, associate vice president of information technology services.

He said 36 people were logged into the all-access university portal on Wednesday; eight were unauthorized users.

The loophole potentially allowed more than 12,000 students access to the adviser portion of the online system, which has only 803 authorized users, he said.

It took about four hours for the university to shut down the site and 24 hours before it was secured and back online, Placido said.

The university said there was no theft of student identification and the issue has been fixed, Placido said.

"What we're talking about is student's names, grades and courses," he said. "It [the system] doesn't do anything; you can't save anything. I understand why the student who found it thought you could change information, but you can't."

Along with securing the system and getting it back online, TWU added harsh language at the adviser-access portion of the Web site when it was placed back online Thursday, threatening to prosecute violators who misuse the portal, he said.

"We want everyone to understand their information is safe," Placido said. "The loophole in the system is now closed."