Complying with the NIH Public
Access Policy: From Soup to Nuts
GINGER SAHA & KATHLEEN C. BLAZAR
CLEVELAND HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARY
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
FEBRUARY 22, 2012
NIH Public Access Compliance Checklist
 Land the grant (Note the correct format of the NIH grant
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number – it is not your RES SpeedType!
Write the paper and include on the manuscript all the numbers
of all the NIH grants that directly supported the research
including salaries of study personnel on NIH training grants.
Be certain that the journal in which you want to publish will
deposit the published version of the article into PubMed Central,
or will allow you to deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript
into the NIH Manuscript Submission System, for release no later
than 12 months after publication.
Link up the PMCID or NIHMS ID in all the required NIH and
NCBI databases.
Cite the article correctly in all future dealings with NIH.
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The NIH Public Access Policy Is Mandatory
 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.
Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161
(Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008)
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Public Access Compliance Monitor
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The PI-is-not-the-author problem.
 The following scenarios all cite the “author” as the
one who has to work through the article publication
and PMC / NIHMS deposit process.
 At Case, the PI is often not the “author.” In fact, the
PI is often not even one of the co-authors.
 However, the PI is the one responsible for
compliance all the way through the process,
including linking up the PMCIDs to the grants.
 Communication between PIs and non-PI authors is
critical!!
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The PI-is-not-the-author problem.
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How to Submit Manuscripts
• Four different submission methods are available,
which vary in:
– Version posted
– Use of the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS)
– Role of Publishers
– Role of Authors
– Participating Journals
• Authors may use the method that is most
appropriate for them and is consistent with their
publishing agreement.
http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process.htm
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PubMed Central Submission Methods
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Submission Method A
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Submission Method B or Method D
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Submission Method C – author uses NIHMS
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 (e.g., an assistant or a librarian). Tasks 2 and
3 must by done by the author.
 Task 1: Deposit Manuscript Files and Link to NIH Funding
 Task 2: Authorize NIH to Process the Manuscript
 Task 3: Approve the PMC-formatted Manuscript for Public Display
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.
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NIHMS failures because the approval process stopped:
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Congratulations! You have a PMCID.
BUT, you are not
done yet.
You have to do all
that linking…
13
Neil M. Thakur, PhD. Special Assistant to the Deputy Director,
Extramural Research NIH wrote to us on 2/1/12:
“When a PI sends us an annual progress report or a
closeout report, they are essentially sending us a receiptthey are telling us how they spent the money. Including
papers on those reports tells us that the grant funds were
used to support that paper. All papers supported by the
award, whether authored by the PI or not, need to be
included. These reports are signed, and they are the only
official documentation of that spending.
“All other grant-paper associations, including
acknowledgements in the text, and entries in NIHMS or
My NCBI, are not official. ”
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How to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy
Many of the next slides have been taken from:
Thakur N., Trawick B., Gibb S. The NIH Public Access Policy
[Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Institutes of Health;
2011 [cited 2012 Feb. 10]. 90 p. Available from
http://publicaccess.nih.gov/public_access_training_region
al_tampa_2011.pdf
CHSL expresses its gratitude.
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eRA Commons/ My Bibliography Integration
From the new Awards View [$] in My Bibliography,
eRA Commons users can:
– See if their publications are compliant with the NIH
Public Access Policy
– Start the manuscript submission process
– Associate their NIH extramural grant awards with
their publications
The Awards View is available only to Commons users
with active grants in their portfolio who have linked their
My NCBI account with their eRA Commons account.
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My NCBI
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NIH Login
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Logged in at My NCBI
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Logged in to My NCBI at PubMed
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Send marked citations to My Bibliography
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Add to My Bibliography
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Click on Save
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New items at My Bibliography – info at PubMed
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My NCBI account
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Manage My Bibliography
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My NCBI at NCBI Bookshelf
 Some of the next information is from
My NCBI Help [Internet].
Bethesda (MD): National Center for Biotechnology
Information (NCBI); 2005-.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3843/
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Sharing My Bibliography
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Settings at My Bibliography
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Edit Settings
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Choose Public, Add a Delegate and Save
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Delegates
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Managing Compliance
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Display Settings in My Bibliography
To see whether your publications are compliant or not, go to My Bibliography and click
the link “Manage My Bibliography.” From the “Display Settings” drop-down menu
select “Award” view, and click the Apply button. The default sorting option with Award
view is “Public Access Compliance” (as shown in the image below), however, you may
select the sort option you prefer. When selecting “Award” under Grouping the citations
associated with awards will be listed first.
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Compliant Articles
 Journal articles that are
compliant with the NIH
Public Access Policy are
marked with a green dot
and have the PubMed
Central citation Id
(PMCID) number listed.
In Process
 Articles newly submitted
to the NIH Manuscript
Submission system are
considered in process
and are marked with a
yellow dot. Note that the
NIHMS ID number is
listed. In the example,
there is no association to
an NIH award. Click the
link “NIH Funding” to
add an award to this
citation.
Non-Compliant
 A red dot indicates that
the article is noncompliant. The
compliance process can
be started by clicking on
the red dot or “Citation
not in NIHMS or PMC.”
NIH funding information
(award id) can be added
at the same time through
the pop-up wizard.
N/A
 Articles that were
Not Applicable
accepted for publication
prior to April 7, 2008 are
not covered by the NIH
Public Access Policy.
These citations are
marked as not applicable
(this status is also
automatically applied to
citation types that are
not journal articles, e.g.,
book chapters, patents,
presentations).
Not Applicable
 Citations must be added to My Bibliography and
associated as Not Applicable.
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Initiating Compliance
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“Edit Status”
 The wizard helps users to begin a manuscript
submission, link to a previously-submitted
manuscript, or determine if their citation is exempt
from the policy. In addition, users can associate their
awards to their publications through the wizard.
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Begin the submission process
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Associating NIH awards to publications
 To associate multiple
citations with NIH
awards at once, select the
citations you wish to
associate to NIH awards
and click the button.
Choose the pertinent
award(s) id (s) from the
list presented to you, and
click “Save.”
Associate individual citations
 To associate individual
citations with NIH
awards, click the “NIH
Funding” link and select
the pertinent award(s) id
(s) from the list
presented to you, and
click “Save & Close.”
Articles with multiple grants
 Citations must be associated with all grants listed.
 This may involve multiple PI’s and multiple My
Bibliography accounts.
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