The primary goals for the Grader project revolve around addressing the shortcomings of standard spreadsheet software for managing instructor gradebooks in an academic setting. While several alternatives to such sofware exist, this project is intended to address the specific needs and requested features of a particular customer. These include:

1. Omission of spreadsheet features that are not relevant to gradebook management.
2. Flexibility of grade organization.
3. Column filtering for different assignments or information about students.
4. Overall statistics that give the instructor or student a general idea of how the class is doing.
5. Sufficient customization for assignments and how assignment scores affect the overall course grade.
6. Histogram views of final grades, including a graphical interface for grade-curve setting.
7. Final grade prediction and minimum scores needed on assignments to achieve a particular final grade.
8. Assignment handin integration.

The Grader tool will be integrated with Cal Poly's network in order to allow for additional security, and for the added functionality of assignment handin and communication between instructors and students with identity verification. This also ensures additional convenience for instructors, as they will be able to automatically import rosters from the system rather than entering students in manually.

In addition to an instructor interface, the program will include a student interface that will allow students to see their individual grades and anonymized grades for the rest of the class in order to self-evaluate their performance. The anonymity of other students' grades is critical; however, it is important for students to be able to see their grades in the context of the course. Careful considerations must be made in order to ensure that students do not have access to identifiable grades of other students. Requirements of the student interface include:

1. Inclusion of fundamental features of instructor view.
2. Omission of names for other students' grades.
3. Convenient interface for handing in assignments.
4. Means of interacting directly with the instructor in order to discuss particular assignment grades or general grading questions.