Article Processing Charges (APC)

Donna Okubo Sr. Community Outreach and Advocacy Manager, PLOS

COASPA 2012

2

3

Growing Interest by Many National Funders to Provide Direct Funding for Article Processing Charges (APC).

– Providing grants for Institutional APC funds

– Investigating 3rd party vendors to administer payments between institution and publishers

– Funders and institutions are looking ways to streamline their administration of APC

4

The Current Billing Process for Most Journals

Centralized System:• Subscriptions

– Publishers to Librarians– Third party vendor (i.e. Ebsco)

• Institution payment process is standardized– Comes from Librarian budget– Librarians submit subscription invoice to their finance department

5

APC is Currently a Decentralized System

• Researcher: Invoiced directly– Payment made by finance department– Department/lab/researcher credit card– Research assistant/grant manager

• Institutional OA Fund: Library/Institution– Researcher reimbursed after payment of invoice– Researcher submit invoice to OA Fund administrator– OA Fund administrator works directly with Publishing

• Research Funder– Direct grants to institutions to fund publication charges. Institution pays

researcher– Establish a direct billing system with publisher

6

7

Are You Prepared?

• Do you have a proper billing process in place?– Manual or automated

• Can your billing platform accommodate growth?– Is your system scalable?

• Subscription based OA journal?– Does your current system have a way to accept APC?– Will you miss out on this revenue stream?

8

APC Opportunities

• Researchers won’t view APC as a barrier to publish• Researchers will have a better understanding of the

cost of publishing research• Cost of publishing is more transparent • Makes the overall financial process efficient for

researchers, funders, institutions and publishers• Funder’s financial support of APC bring credibility to

this type payment process

9

Take Aways

• Anticipate how APC policies might effect your financial billing system

• Evaluate your current billing processing system • Think scalability and administratively sustainable• Automate as much as possible

10