NIH Public Access Policy

NIH Public Access Policy
Information on this site is subject to change. Please check back frequently.

Key Points | Public Access Website |FAQs | Submit your manuscript | PubMed Central | Glossary | More FAQs | Training | Copyright Forms | Journal Policies | Additional Links | Contacts

ATTENTION!

If you have questions about the application of the policy contact Linda Crumpler lcrumple@utmb.edu

NIH Public Access Policy: Updates and Resources -April, 2009:
A section on citation methods has been added to the Public Access Policy website. This section, http://publicaccess.nih.gov/citation_methods.htm, consolidates instructions on citing papers in accordance with the NIH Public Access Policy.

To locate existing PMCIDs for publications when you know the PMID, use the handy PMID: PMCID converter tool provided on the NCBI website: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/pmctopmid.

Analysis of Response to Public Access Policy - 2/18/09: NIH has published a detailed analysis of its responses to more than 100 comments it received last March concerning its public access policy in the Federal Register February 18, 2009 Vol 74, No. 31:http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-3442.pdf.

Update on Public Access - 6/17/2008: All comments from the NIH RFI on the new policy are now all available on the public access Web site (http://publicaccess.nih.gov). NIH is combining these results with feedback received from the March 20, 2008 Open Meeting (on line at the same site) and will be posting an analysis and the results by September 30, 2008.

NIH Public Access Policy FAQ Updates 5/2/2008: On May 2, 2008, NIH made some changes to the NIH Public Access Policy Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for clarification. See FAQs.

GCRC Support: NIH Public Access Help confirmed that the Public Access Policy applies to any research supported on the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC), even when funded from other sources. Therefore, if an article is accepted for publication on or after April 7, and arose from support from the GCRC, the manuscript must be submitted to PMC and associated with the GCRC award. The PI of the award does not have to be one of the authors.

Furthermore, the NIH Guide notice (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html#sup1.%20) on the revised policy states: "The NIH Public Access Policy applies to all peer-reviewed articles that arise, in whole or in part, from direct costs 1 funded by NIH, or from NIH staff, that are accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008."

1 Direct costs are costs that can be specifically identified with a particular project or activity. NIH Grants Policy Statement, Rev. 12/2003; http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/nihgps_2003/NIHGPS_Part2.htm#_Toc54600040 .

Multiple year awards: Since the GCRC is a multi-year award, select the last year that the grant was received in NIHMS to associate the manuscript with.In addition, the published article should also acknowledge GCRC support, even partial support.

The National Institutes of Health Public Access (NIHPA) Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to submit journal articles that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central (PMC) ( http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ ). The Policy requires that these articles be accessible to the public on PubMed Central to help advance science and improve human health.

The revised policy on public access (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html#sup1.%20) is mandatory and applies to all peer-reviewed articles accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008 that arise from direct costs from NIH funding or NIH staff, including grants active in Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007 - September 30, 2008).

NIH Public Access Policy Details

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.

How does the NIH Public Access Policy apply to me?

The Policy applies to you if your peer-reviewed article is based on work in one or more of the following categories:

Directly funded by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or beyond;
Directly funded by a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008;
Directly funded by the NIH Intramural Program;
If NIH pays your salary.

NIH Extramural principal investigators, grantees or applicants will use their NIH eRA Commons account login to access the NIH Manuscript Submission system (NIHMS) and submit their manuscripts to PMC. Third party submitters will need to have an account in MyNCBI.

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Key dates:

Beginning April 7, 2008, all articles arising from NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.
Beginning May 25, 2008 , anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PubMed Central Identifier (PMCID), or NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) reference number, when citing applicable articles that arise from their NIH funded research. This policy includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.

Key Decision Points and Key issues
for UTMB authors

Copyright:

Include the signed Non-Exclusive Public Access License with UTMB Proposal Routing form for proposals and progress reports to NIH. (grants non-exclusive rights to UTMB to allow compliance with NIH policy.)
Provide the journal publisher a copy of the Notice of Rights granted to UTMB, upon submission of un-reviewed article to publisher.
Submit final peer-reviewed manuscript to PMC upon acceptance by publisher if the publisher has not agreed to do so for the author. See list of participating journals here. Search for other journal policies here.

PMC submission process: (log in at: http://www.nihms.nih.gov/)

Set the delay period for release in PMC for 12 months or less from official publication date, depending on the journal.
Provide award numbers for the NIH award(s) which supported this research.
Review and approve version* that will be published in PMC.
Record PMCID assigned by the system.

* Approval must always be done by the PI/Author. It cannot be done by a third party.

Future proposals:

Include the PMCID when citing this this publication in your proposal or progress reports to NIH if applicable. (Use the PMC prefix in front of a PubMed Central reference number) Search PMC for numbers, or use the PMID: PMCID Converter.

Click here for MORE

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RESOURCES

Glossary of terms

Frequently Asked Questions:

NIHMS Frequently Asked Questions
Public Access Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ UPDATES: On May 2, 2008, NIH made the following changes to the NIH Public Access Policy Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm :

Questions C7, C9 and C10 are new, and reflect improvements to PubMed. They clarify and simplify how awardees can comply with the fifth specification of the NIH Public Access Policy, which states: “Beginning May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC or NIH Manuscript Submission reference number when citing applicable articles that arise from their NIH funded research. This policy includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.”
Questions A4, B10-B12, C8, C11, D5, E4, E5, F5 and F6 were developed based on questions received by NIH. These questions do not signify any changes in policy or procedure.
NIH has responded to a number of questions about issues already addressed by the January 11 version of the FAQs, and we have made a number small changes to many of these FAQ questions to improve their clarity. The biggest changes we have made is to the wording of FAQs B1-B5. These clarifications to the existing FAQ do not signify any changes in policy or procedure.
The January 11, 2008 FAQ uses the term “article” as a generic word for a peer-reviewed scientific publication and all its versions. At the March 20 Open Meeting, some stakeholders commented that ‘article’ could be confused with the term “final published article”. Therefore, this FAQ uses the term ‘paper’ instead of ‘article’. We will be updating the website to reflect this change as well.

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Training:

UTMB FORUMS April, 2008: slide show (revised pdf), slides handout (pdf), summary handout(pdf)
NIH training: slides, articles, and regional seminars
Submission Process Overview
Tutorials - NIHMS submission process tutorials with detailed Instructions on submitting your manuscript to PMC for PI submitters and third party submitters.
PubMed Central demo - How Full Text Articles in PubMed Central Link to other Molecular Biology Databases at NCBI

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Copyright:

NIH - Copyright Agreement language:
"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."

UTMB - Copyright and non-exclusive rights at UTMB:
Limited rights will be reserved for UTMB that will allow the PI and the institution to meet the terms and conditions of awards from NIH concerning public access up front, at the proposal stage and at the award stage. The following documents have been developed to make the copyright issue as effortless as possible. Please check this site or the Research Services site frequently for updated information and forms.

UTMB Non-Exclusive Public Access License (example - to be signed by PI upon submission of routing form accompanying the proposal submission process and progress reporting process).

Notice of Rights (example - to be provided to the publisher upon submission of an article for publication)

A similar statement will also be included in UTMB's Statement of Intent to Establish a Consortium Agreement (example) as part of subcontracts.

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Journal Policies:

NIH list of journals which automatically submit articles to PMC

NIH Compliance status of publishers of the Top 100 journals with articles by UTMB authors funded by NIH.

Publishing policies for 280 high impact journals in the sciences. Created by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to help it’s scientists and their collaborators comply with the HHMI public access publishing policy.

Publisher's copyright & archiving policies for 377 publishers developed by SHERPA RoMEO, United Kingdom . For example:

Example 1 (compliant): JAMA
Example 2 (non-compliant): American Journal of Occupational Therapy

CONTACTS:

Linda Crumpler in Research Services, x69431, research.office@utmb.edu for questions about the policy, the submission process, or what to include in your proposals to NIH.

Center for Technology Development, x27952, kaperuma@utmb.edu for questions about copyright issues

NIHMS Help Desk

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ADDITIONAL LINKS:

Association of Research Libraries - ARL influences the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve.
eRA Commons Log into NIHMS using your eRA Commons account to submit your manuscript; or log into eRA Commons to see if your manuscripts in PMC are associated with your grants and to submit new manuscripts.
NIH Guide Notice on Public Access Policy Original notice of NIH policy in the NIH Guide, published February 3, 2005.
NIH Guide Notice on Revised Public Access Policy Updated notice of policy making the policy mandatory, published in the NIH Guide January 11, 2008.
NIH Public Access web site - Explains the policy and how to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy step by step.
NIH Manuscript Submission System - The site which manages all submissions to PMC.
PUBMED CENTRAL: - the free NIH archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature.
RFI - Request for Information issued by NIH for comments on the new policy. Deadline for comments: May 31, 2008.
SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

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