What Policy?

Beginning May 2, 2005, the NIH requests that investigators funded by the National Institutes of Health submit an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to the NIH National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central.

Key points:  

• Manuscript submission is strongly encouraged, but not required.
• Applies to peer-reviewed NIH funded work

More Information: NIH Public Access Page

Why Public Access?

A central digital archive of NIH-funded research publications

• preserves research findings
• allows the NIH to better manage research dollars, track scientific productivity, and set priorities
• can be linked to information technology tools, databases, and services
• encourages a cross-disciplinary approach to understanding scientific data
• provides access to scientists, educators, and health care professionals
• provides access to the public and fosters an understanding of the importance of NIH-funded biomedical research

Benefits for Authors and Investigators

• visibility for research results
• fulfills existing NIH requirement to provide publications as part of progress reports

More information:  Policy Overview

Does the Policy Apply to Me?

The NIH Public Access Policy applies to peer-reviewed, original research publications that have been supported, in whole or in part, with direct costs from NIH. The policy applies to all research grant and career development award mechanisms, cooperative agreements, contracts, Institutional and Individual Ruth L Kirschstein National Research Service Awards, as well as NIH intramural research studies.

The policy does not apply to book chapters, editorials, reviews, or conference proceedings

Source:   FAQ:  Frequently Asked Questions What kinds of papers/publications do I submit?

How Do I Submit My Manuscript?

Manuscripts are submitted via the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS).  Before you submit your manuscript:

1. Check the journal policy/copyright agreement to see if the publisher allows the manuscript to be deposited into PubMed Central (see details below)
2. Check with your co-authors (details below)
3. Locate information on grant numbers and principal investigators (see details below )
4. Ready the manuscript and login information (see details below)

Log into the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS).  Use your eRA Commons login.  If a third party is submitting the manuscript on your behalf, they will need to set up a MyNCBI account.  To establish a MyNCBI account, go to this  page , click on MyNCBI and follow the directions to establish an account.

Summary of Manuscript Submission Process

1. Enter article title and principal investigator information
2. Enter the grant information
3. Upload the manuscript
4. Verify the summary
5. Check the PDF receipt
6. Accept submission statement

The manuscript will be converted into XML, the standardized digital format used by PubMed Central.  The Corresponding PI will be notified via e-mail and asked to approve the final XML manuscript.  The article will be publicly accessible after journal publication plus any delay specified by the PI.   The PI should honor any time delays requested by the publisher.

Information and Assistance

Link to a PowerPoint Presentation  (presented March 2, 2006 )

NIH Public Access Policy page

Author's Manual: Abridged Policy, Submission Process and FAQ

NIH Manuscript Submission Help Desk

Medical Library
The Medical Library faculty will work with researchers and departments to better understand the NIH policy, open access publishing initiatives, and other topics related to scientific publishing. For more information or help contact: Kellie Kaneshiro, Associate Librarian at 317-274-1612 mailto:medlref @ iupui.edu or the faculty librarian providing liaison services to your department.

Step 1:  Check the journal policy/copyright agreement to see if the publisher allows the manuscript to be deposited into PubMed Central.

Some journal publishers already deposit articles in PubMed Central.  If publishing in this subset of journals and if these journals make their articles available within 12 months or less, they comply with the NIH public access policy.

Check the copyright transfer agreement to see if it's permissible to deposit the manuscript into PubMed Central.  Some journal publishers will specify a release time for the article, so look for time stipulations as well.

If the copyright transfer agreement does not allow for deposit into PubMed Central, formally request permission from the publisher.   To avoid risking serious consequences, proceed only after permission has been obtained.

The best time to obtain permission from the publisher is when you sign the copyright transfer agreement and send it to the journal publisher. 

NIH's suggested modification to the publisher's copyright transfer agreement (add to publisher's form, note: the publisher may or may not agree to requested changes):

"Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication or thereafter, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible after publication by Journal."

Step 2:  Check with your co-authors to make sure there are no objections and that no one else has already submitted the manuscript. 

The NIH Manuscript Submission System requires that a corresponding PI be designated (this does not have to be the corresponding author on the paper).  The corresponding PI serves as the contact for the submission approval steps.

Step 3:  Locate information on grant numbers and principal investigators.  Provided that you have the names of the principal investigators, the grant numbers should already be in the NIHMS system.

Step 4:  Ready the manuscript files and login information. 

• What to submit:   the final peer-reviewed and modified version that you sent to the journal publisher, this includes any supplemental material such as images, tables, figures and charts.
• What format:  the NIH Manuscript Submission System will take a variety of formats including:  MS Word, WordPerfect, PDF, jpeg, Excel, etc.)

KK Updated: 7/20/05; 10/25/05, 3/01/06

http://www.medlib.iupui.edu/nihopenaccess/nihopenaccess.html