Subject Librarian
Publishing in OA journals
Check fees, if any: how will you pay article/author publishing/processing charges (APCs): grant funds, other, request waiver
Check license: this varies; some OA journals do not offer a Creative Commons license
Investigate other info about prospective journal: where indexed, quality indicators, etc.
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Tips for evaluating new open access journalsThat is journals that haven't had time to join OASPA, get an "impact factor"
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Author bewareAbout the problem of journals, publishers, conference which are low-quality, fraudulent, predatory.
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Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJYou may search by subject, by license, by publication charges
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Funding open access journal publishing :Article processing chargesNice overview of issues. Published May 2014 in College & Research Libraries News vol. 75 no. 5 240-243
Who pays?
"Although charging publication fees is the best-known business model for peer-reviewed OA journals, it's not the most common. Only about 30% of peer-reviewed OA journals overall charge publication fees. When OA journals do charge fees, the fees are usually paid by funders (59%) or by universities (24%). Only 12% of the time are they paid by authors out of pocket." [From How to make your own work open access CC_BY 3.0]
Washington University does not have a fund to assist with open access article charges. It's possible that some departments may have funds for this, so you may want to ask. The libraries have a few memberships, etc., which maydiscount charges with some journals.
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SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics)model built on redirecting funds currently used to pay for subscriptions to participating journals to support their conversion to Open Access, as well as to cover fees in existing OA journals.