There are several positive impacts that the Grader Tool will have on both professors and students, the two intended user groups.
For professors, there will be an increase in convenience and efficiency when handling the grades of students. Professors will have great control over almost all aspects regarding grades and will be able to organize them as they see fit. This will allow professors to easily use the program to grade classes in their own way. Students will benefit from the program as well. The students will conveniently be able to see how they are doing in the class in comparison to their peers. They will also be able to predict future grades, increasing productivity as the student will be motivated to obtain certain grades on individual items in order to achieve a desired class grade. Potential negative impacts include those that are common with programs designed to be used by individuals. If the system is poorly constructed and is hard to use, it will decrease convenience, efficiency, and productivity. There is also the large issue of security. If the implementation of the program is corrupt, it may reveal information that is meant to be kept private, such as students being able to see the grades of other students. When handling sensitive information, it is important that the security of said information be kept at all times. Finally, there may be issues regarding data integrity. If the program does not handle information properly, it may produce false information, such as giving a student a grade he/she does not deserve. On a more individual level, a negative impact would be a potential fall in productivity. With students being able to predict grades, they may find they can get lower grades on some assignments, thus causing them to slack off. However, this issue is of a more personal nature, dependent on who the student is.