Assignment idea: Follow the money

I wonder if you could build and assignment or simulation/tutorial from the money a researcher on the U campus brings in for a grant to the article they publish in a journal. Would it be a good story?

Here is a link to the annual research report written by OVPR: http://www.research.umn.edu/report.html. I suppose you could use a previous year's report to actually see something published.

Also then ask students to brainstorm and reflect on this money trail for other sources they find.

It would be interested to create two different one's--one for something published in an open access journal and one in a non-open access journal. Wonder if you could find a convincing story in that?