JISC has released The Potential Role for Intermediaries in Managing the Payment of Open Access Article Processing Charges (APCs).
Here's an excerpt:
This report examines the operational challenges that universities, funders and publishers face in the UK relating to the payment of article processing charges (APCs)—the charges levied by the publishers of open access and hybrid journals to meet the costs of the publication process. It then examines the feasibility of using intermediaries of various kinds to provide services to aggregate payments as between universities and publishers, along with other services relating to the processes involved in ensuring that an article is published on open access terms. . . .
We conclude as a result of our work that with a very few exceptions, the systems and processes currently associated with the payment of APCs are sub-optimal, and could present a significant barrier to the wider adoption of open access publishing.
| Digital Scholarship | Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography |