1. Address Copyright in Publication Agreements for the Relevant Articles
The publishing agreement between an author and a journal must allow each paper to be submitted to NIH in accordance with the Public Access Policy. This includes either permission to submit to the NIH or permission to submit or have submitted an electronic version of a final, peer-reviewed manuscript upon acceptance for publication to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central database. The article must be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Librarians can advise you about which journals comply with the NIH policy.
The Sherpa/RoMEO website includes publisher copyright policies, http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php , and provides a link to compliance information, but it may not be inclusive. Library staff is available to interpret the directory and find information for journals not included within the Sherpa/RoMEO list.
2. Submit pertinent articles to the NIH Submission system, which will in turn place the articles in PubMed Central.
There are three different methods of submission:
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The author, or designate, can submit the manuscript directly to NIH
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The publisher can submit the manuscript to NIH.
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Certain publishers will submit the final published article to NIH.
Librarians can help you determine publisher policies on submission. The list of over 400 journals that submit the final published paper is located at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm . There is also a list of publishers’ policies on the NIH Public Access Policy at the University of Rochester Medical Center Library www.urmc.rochester.edu/hslt/miner/research_and_publishing/PublishersPoliciesonPubMedCentralMinerLibrary.cfm . This list is not comprehensive. Again, Library staff can help determine if researchers need to submit the manuscript, or if the publisher will provide the service.
3. Cite PubMed Central ID (PMCID) number in NIH communications.
When citing journal articles in NIH applications, proposals or progress reports, authors must include the PubMed Central reference number for each paper.
Librarians can show you how to locate a PMCID and how to include it within RefWorks and Endnote bibliographic management databases.
