The consensus opinion is that the UI is going to be the most difficult part of this work - not only for settling on a design and implementing it, but also for gaining the approval of the community at large.
Attached is a brief UI review of the Resources tool, conducted by Kathy Moore at BU. Not something that's necessarily in scope, but it may serve as background, or perhaps drive some things we could consider.
ResourcesUI_506.doc
UI Mock-ups:
toggle2.doc
timed_release.pdf