The granularity level of the resources would be determined by the authors as they assign component headings, labels or attributes to the material. The authors receive a number of benefits of such a repository in addition to having their resources accessible online. An author may select material from the repository to create a new course or lecture. For example, the author may want to put a lecture together which contains slides from a number of previously given presentations. This can be done by providing the specific criteria for the desired material, e.g., select all material that covers a specified topic at an overview level.
Authors can make course material available to students.
For example, a student may only want to see the sections without proofs and supporting components. After entering this criteria the desired material is made available to the student. An author can also allow others to add comments and further material to the repository. Most likely the author will want to determine if the proposed additional material is temporary or should become a permanent component of the repository. Work and a prototype of such a course repository is being done in conjunction with Christian Suess and Burkhard Freitag at the University of Passau in Germany.