Students struggle with scattered information, repeated calculations, and low-usability tools. By providing automation, clarity, and a structured way to track progress, GradeTracker aims to directly address these problems.

Students struggle to track their academic progress each semester because assessment criteria are spread across two different systems and require constant manual calculations and updates. This workload reduces their ability to understand their personal standing,stay motivated and make informed decisions. This thesis introduced the GradeTracker prototype, an application that was designed to reduce these challenges and provide student a clear and organized overview of their progress.

When Tracking Fails: The Problems Students Face

Research and user observation identified four main challenges :

• Repetitive and time-consuming calculations every time a new grade is published.
• Information is scattered across Itslearning and Peppi.
• Absence of storage forcing students to input identical data multiple times
• Low usability in tools like spreadsheets and calculators

These problems render the procedure unreliable, ineffective and mentally exhausting for students.

GradeTracker: Designed to Solve These Problems

The primary goal of the GradeTracker prototype was to provide targeted solutions to each of the issues identified. Its core features map to the challenges as follows:

1. Automated, Real-Time Calculations

It automatically calculates weighted grades, percentages, and progress.

This eliminates the need for many repetitive calculations, therefore solving the biggest time-consuming problem.

2. Centralized dashboard reduces fragmentation

All course information appears in one interface.
This gives students a single, consistent place to track their results.

3. Long-Term Storage Prevents Data Loss

User inputs remain accessible through time.

This eliminates the problem of repeated re-entry.

4. Intuitive UI solves low usability.

The simple interactions, clear visual hierarchy, and clean layout of this prototype solve the usability problem and provide ease of tracking, even for a non-technical user.

5. Visual Progress Improves Motivation

Graphs and indicators make academic progress easier to follow.
This helps students stay motivated and check their standing more regularly.

A Path Toward Smarter Academic Tools

Although GradeTracker already addresses the major problems students face, further improvements can continue to strengthen the experience. This could be augmented by adding personalized study reminders and performance alerts so that when a student is falling behind or approaching a target grade, he or she would receive direct notice. Another improvement would be to enable comparison tools course by course, showing which study strategies are working best for the student. These additions would further help students be organized, motivated, and in control of their academic progress.