NIEHS Superfund Grantees:
Why and How to Comply with the NIH Public Access Policy

Why:

The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008). The law states: The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, that the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law

Terms and Conditions in the Notice of Grant Award for the Superfund Research and Education awards include the following language: Award recipients are required to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy. This includes submission to PubMed Central (PMC), upon acceptance for publication, an electronic version of a final, peer reviewed, manuscript resulting from research supported in whole or in part, with direct costs from NIH.

On all NIH applications, proposals and reports, PIs are to include the PMC reference number (PMCID) at the end of the full citation of all papers that fall under the Public Access Policy and are authored by them or arise from their NIH award. NIH staff pay particular attention to the progress report publication list and PI biosketches.

Failure to comply could result in serious penalties, including the loss of NIH funding and eligibility for future funding.

PubMed – PubMed Central?

• PubMed Central (PMC): PubMed Central (PMC) is the NIH digital archive of full-text, peer-reviewed journal papers. These papers are indexed with a PMCID, a series of numbers preceded by ‘PMC’. PMC content is publicly accessible and integrated with other databases (see: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/).
  
  
• PubMed: PubMed provides access to citations from biomedical literature. It includes over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s, along with links to full text articles and other scientific resources. These citations are indexed with a PMID, a series of numbers.

PubMed and PubMed Central are not the same. PubMed includes only citations and abstracts of articles, while PubMed Central carries the full text of the paper. If your paper is already listed in PubMed you must still submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central.

What to submit:

Any paper that is peer-reviewed including research reports and reviews, reporting research funded in whole or in part by the NIH i.e., any paper that is reporting research funded by the Superfund Research Program, and is accepted for publication in a journal on or after April 7, 2008.

How to submit:

As soon as an article is accepted for publication, submit an electronic version of the article to PubMed Central (PMC). Be sure to ensure that publishing or copyright agreements allow for full compliance with the policy. There are several ways to submit articles:

• Publish in a journal that submits all NIH funded final published articles to PMC. No additional action or effort is required. For a list of these journals, see http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm
  
  
• Arrange with a publisher, usually for a fee, to submit the final journal article directly to PMC. The author asks the publisher to deposit specific final published article in PMC
  
  
• Deposit a copy of the final peer-reviewed manuscript in PMC via the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system http://www.nihms.nih.gov typically log in using eRA Commons login route and password. eRA Commons account and password are usually provided by the institution. Subsequent submissions should use the same login.

Submitting a final peer-reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central (PMC) via the NIHMS involves three tasks, as explained below. Task 1 may be done by an author or by someone in the author’s organization. Tasks 2 and 3 must be done by the author.

A Note on Timing: NIH awardees are responsible for ensuring that manuscripts are submitted to the NIHMS upon acceptance for publication and that all NIHMS tasks are complete within three months of publication.

For a video of this process, see Submitting an Article to PubMed Central (WMV Video - 12:01) (Help Viewing Captions).

Task 1: Deposit Manuscript Files and Link to NIH Funding
Upload a copy of the accepted final peer-reviewed manuscript and associated files (e.g., Microsoft Word document and figures) via the NIHMS. At the same time, identify the NIH funding associated with the manuscript. It usually takes less than 10 minutes to complete this task.

Task 2: Authorize NIH to Process the Manuscript
The author designates the number of months after publication when the manuscript may be made publicly available in PMC. The author then confirms, via the NIHMS, a statement that the deposit of the manuscript is consistent with any publication and copyright agreements, and that NIH may begin processing the manuscript for use in PMC.

Task 3: Approve the PMC-formatted Manuscript for Public Display
The NIHMS will convert the deposited files into a standard PMC format, and email the author to approve the PMC-formatted manuscript for public display. The author then reviews and approves the PMC-formatted manuscript via the NIHMS. Corrections to the manuscript, if necessary, may be requested at this time.

Following completion of Task 3:
The NIHMS will email the author and all PIs the citation with the PMCID once it is assigned;
PMC will automatically make the paper publicly available after the designated delay period has expired.

Include PubMed Central ID numbers (PMCIDs) in NIH applications, proposals, progress reports, biosketches and publication lists.

• Include PMCID at the end of the full citation
• Use “PMC Journal-In Process” at the end of the full citation for articles where the publisher is submitting to PMC and PMCID is not yet available
• Use NIHMSID at the end of full citation where submission has been made, and PMCID is not yet available. NIHMS will not be accepted 3 months after publication. PMCIDS are assigned around the time of publication.

Note: NIH expects NIH applications, proposals and reports to provide the most up-to-date information available on Public Access Policy compliance. The NIH Manuscript Submission reference number (NIHMSID) or "PMC Journal - In Process" should not be used once the PMCID is available. Previously submitted applications, proposals and reports need not be updated when the PMCID becomes available. Please use the PMCID once it is assigned.

The PMCID is posted in PubMed as soon as an article has been successfully processed by PMC, which usually occurs around the time of publication. PMCIDs are listed in the lower right corner of the AbstractPlus view of PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed). If the paper is successfully processed but not yet publicly available on PMC, PubMed will also list the date the paper will become available. NIH provides other methods of obtaining PMCIDs (e.g. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/techbull/so08/so08_skill_kit_pmcid.html), as do several bibliography management software packages.