Don't pay for Gold OA Publishing Till You First Mandate Green OA Self-Archiving

In October 2008 (ROARMAP http://bit.ly/cj9feP ], University of Hong Kong proposed to the University Grants Committee (RGC/UGC) an Open Access Mandate for all RGC/UGC-funded research. It is not yet clear whether this mandate was subsequently adopted, by either HKU or RGC/UGC. The proposed mandate itself was an almost-optimal one: It was an Immediate-Deposit mandate, but it seems to have misunderstood the fact that a postprint can be deposited in the Institutional Repository without having to seek "permission" from the publisher. Permissions are only at issue at all for the date when the deposit can be made Open Access. The proposed mandate's language makes it sound as if HKU wrongly believes that it needs to pay the publisher for the right to deposit! It is to be hoped that this will be clarified and that the deposit mandate will be adopted (both for RGC/HGC-funded research and for unfunded HKU research) before HKU begins to pay any publisher anything at all.