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Revised NIH Public Access Policy


Key Points


As of April 7, 2008:

The revised NIH Public Access Policy stipulates that as of FY2008, NIH-funded investigators are required to submit (or have submitted for them) their final, peer-reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance of publication to be made publicly available within 12 months of publication. This policy applies to NIH-funded manuscripts accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008.

As of May 25, 2008:

NIH applications, proposals and progress reports must include the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) when citing an article that falls under the policy and is authored or co-authored by the investigator, or arose from the investigator’s NIH award. This policy includes applications, proposals and progress reports submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.

 

Impact on Publishing and Grants

NIH Public Access Policy will impact NIH reporting requirements for Principal Investigators who publish peer-reviewed research which arises from NIH funding. Compliance with this revised Public Access Policy is a term and condition of grant awards and contracts active in fiscal year 2008 (October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2008) or beyond, and all contracts awarded after April 7, 2008.

 

When is Compliance Required?

Compliance is tied to current NIH funding as of FY2008, and the date of acceptance of the publication. Compliance is required under the following scenarios:

  • Manuscript generated by NIH FY2008 (or beyond) grant or cooperative agreement and accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008
  • Manuscript generated by a continuing NIH grant or cooperative agreement that is active in FY 2008 (or beyond) and accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008
  • Manuscript generated by NIH contract awarded after April 7, 2008

 

Who is Responsible for Compliance?

Institutions and Principal Investigators (PI) are responsible for compliance. The PI of the grant is also responsible even if they are not an author or co-author of a publication that falls under the revised NIH policy.

 

How to Comply
Compliance with this policy is a 3-step process:

  1. Copyright

    • The Authors must ensure that any copyright transfer or other publication agreements allow their articles to be submitted to NIH in accordance with this policy. Authors should avoid signing any agreements with publishers that do not allow the author to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.

    • CSHL will provide authors with a letter to publishers at the time their articles are submitted for publication that indicates their intention to comply with this Policy. This letter can be found at: CSHL Notification of Compliance Letter

    • In addition, NIH has suggested the following addenda be included in any publisher’s copyright agreement signed by authors at the time articles are accepted for publication:
      Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after publication by Journal.
      (see Addendum.doc for a word document of paragraph)

     

  2. Submitting a manuscript to PMC
  3. There are three options for submittal:

    a) Publish in a journal that submits directly to PMC. Over 350 journals currently have agreements to automatically submit final published articles to PMC. If you publish in one of these journals, no further action is needed by you to be in compliance with this submission requirement. See :http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm for the most current list of these journals.

    or

    b) Publish in a journal that will submit to PMC on your behalf. Some publishers (Elsevier, Blackwell Publishing’s Online Open, Oxford Journals’ Oxford Open, and Springer’s Open Choice are among these) will submit manuscripts to PMC at the author’s request. However, the author will still have to personally verify and approve the release of the manuscript via the NIH Manuscript Submission system. Authors are contacted by email to take this action. In addition, some journals may charge for this service.

    or

    c) Author or institution submits manuscript to PMC. Peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted for publication are submitted to PMC through the NIH manuscript submission system (NIHMS) http://www.nihms.nih.gov/db/sub.cgi. The NIHMS system is very easy to use. This approach, like b) above, requires authors to personally verify and approve the submitted manuscripts and accompanying charts and data via NIHMS. Authors are contacted by email to take this action.

    • The format required for submissions to PMC is the complete text of manuscript(s) along with any corresponding image files, table files, and/or supplementary materials.
    • The NIHMS supports a wide variety of file types (MS Word, Word Perfect, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.).
    • The CSHL Library requests authors forward, upon receipt, the publisher’s email which indicates acceptance of their manuscript to: libraryhelp@cshl.edu
    • The Library offers a submission service for all CSHL authors.

     

  4. Citations in Subsequent Grant Proposals

  5. Effective May 25, 2008, authors must include the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) or the NIH Manuscript Submission system reference number (NIHMS ID) when citing their own peer-reviewed articles accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008, in NIH applications, proposals, renewals or progress reports.

    Example:

    Canaran P, Buckler ES, Glaubitz JC, Stein L, Sun Q, Zhao W, Ware D. 2008. Panzea: an update on new content and features. Nucleic Acids Research 36 (Database Issue): D1041-3. PMCID: PMC2238995

    · The PMCID can be found:

 

What is a Final, Peer-Reviewed Manuscript?

The final, peer-reviewed manuscript is defined by NIH as:

“The Investigator’s final manuscript of a peer-reviewed article accepted for journal publication, including all modifications from the peer-review process.” It also includes all graphics and supplemental materials associated with the work.

The policy does not apply to non peer-reviewed materials such as correspondence, book chapters, and editorials.

 

What is PubMed Central?

PubMed Central (PMC) is the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.

 

NIH Resources

http://publicaccess.nih.gov/
NIH main website

http://www.nihms.nih.gov/web-help/index.html
NIH’s online tutorial. It explains the steps involved in article submission to PMC

http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm
NIH Public Access website has detailed compliance information, FAQ, and background information.

http://www.nihms.nih.gov/web-help/index.html
The NIHMS System Slide Show demonstrates the different submission approaches and how to review and approve the web version of manuscripts.

http://www.nihms.nih.gov/faq.html
The NIHMS website for FAQs.

 

Library Help

The Library is available to help locate PMCIDs, and customize personal EndNote libraries to store PMCIDs for bibliographic display and citations.

The Library offers a submission service for all CSHL authors.

Any questions, please contact us:

· IM the Online Librarian from: http://library.cshl.edu/OnlineLibrarian/index.html

· email Ask A Librarian at: LibraryHelp@cshl.edu

· Call us at x6872

· Check the Library website for updates: http://library.cshl.edu/

 

CSHL Documents

CSHL Library, in coordination with Sponsored Programs and Technology Transfer, has developed policies and procedures to assist principal investigators and their scientific administrators understand and comply with this policy.

CSHL Notification of Compliance Letter
This letter must accompany articles submitted for publication. This is an indication of your intention to comply with the policy.

Addendum
An addendum must be attached to the copyright agreement at the time of signing.

Journal Choice
Flow chart of how journal choice determines submittion process.

Powerpoint Presentation
A restatement of this site in Powerpoint format.

 


Adapted from document originally created by the Bernard Becker Medical Library, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

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