NIH Public Access Policy
Any peer-reviewed publications arising from NIH-funded research on or after April 7, 2008 must be submitted to the National Library of Medicine's public access repository, PubMed Central (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov). As mandated by the federal government, manuscripts from NIH-funded research will be made publicly available no later than 12 months after publication. Researchers should submit their manuscripts electronically through the NIH Manuscript Submission System at http://www.nihms.nih.gov/.
Additionally, researchers are responsible for notifying publishers that a manuscript is subject to the NIH policy. For more information on this process, please visit the NIH Public Access page at http://publicaccess.nih.gov or the BUMC Office of Research Administration NIH policy page. The NIH also hosts a 'PMID : PMCID Converter tool' as well as additional useful resources & tools at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/public_access/resources.html.
If you have additional questions, please contact Jane Kinsel at the Office of Research Administration at (617) 638-4600 or the Library's Reference Desk at refquest@bu.edu or (617) 638-4228.
Quick Reference Guide
The NIH Public Access Policy applies to publications that are:
- Peer-reviewed
- Accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008
- A product of research that has been directly funded by the NIH
How do I comply with the Policy?
- Copyright: Verify that any copyright agreement that you make with a journal publisher allows you to submit your manuscript to PubMed Central in accordance with the NIH Public Access Policy.
- Submission: Your paper must be submitted to PubMed Central within 12 months of publication:
- Some journal
publishers automatically submit their materials to PubMed Central within
12 months of publication. If your article is submitted to one
of these journals, you do not need to do anything to comply with the
policy. A list of these journals can be found at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm .
OR
- You, or someone in your institution, must deposit your final peer-reviewed manuscript in the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system at http://www.nihms.nih.gov/
- Citations:
When you are citing NIH-funded papers in NIH applications, proposals,
or progress reports, you must list the PubMed Central ID (PMCID) at
the end of your reference. This number can be found by locating
the article's citation in PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?holding=bumcamlib ).
** Please Note: The PMCID is not the same as the PubMed ID (PMID).
In PubMed, the PMCID will appear at the bottom of an abstract, to the right of the PMID. To view the PMCID:
If you already know your PMID number and you would like to find the PMCID number, you can use the NLM's PM to PMC ID conversion tool at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/pmctopmid
Helpful URLs:
BUMC Office of Research Administration: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/ora/grant-administration-and-policy-updates/nih-public-access-policy/
PubMed Central: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.
NIH Public Access Policy FAQ: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/
NIH Manuscript Submission System: http://www.nihms.nih.gov/
NIH Public Access Policy: Overview for Librarians [PDF]: http://mlanet.org/government/gov_pdf/2009_sep_pub_access_policy.pdf
