Tech Time
Spread the Word!
The PubMed Central Manuscript Submission System Now Available!
Encourage People at Your Institution to Submit Manuscripts as Part of the NIH Public Access Policy
The goals of the NIH Public Access Policy are*:
ACCESS—Provide electronic access to NIH-funded research publications for patients, families, health professionals, teachers, and students.
ARCHIVE—Keep a central archive of NIH-funded research publications—for now and in the future, preserving vital medical research results and information for years to come.
ADVANCE SCIENCE—Advance science by creating an information resource that will make it easier for scientists to mine medical research publications, and for NIH to better manage its entire research investment.
NIH created an online system to streamline the process by which Principal Investigators (PIs) and authors can submit their peer-reviewed
final manuscripts to NIH's PubMed Central (PMC). The NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) System is currently accepting submissions
through the eRA Commons (the Electronic Research Administration Web site for NIH Extramural principal investigators, grantees or applicants)
and through NIH Login (for Intramural NIH scientists and staff). Third party submissions will be accepted starting July 6, 2005.
NIH-funded investigators are requested to submit an electronic version of the author's final manuscript upon acceptance for publication,
resulting from research supported in whole or in part, with direct costs from NIH. Beginning May 2, Electronic submission will be made directly to the NLM's PubMed Central (PMC) digital repository of
full-text, peer-reviewed, biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research journals. At the time of submission, the author will specify the timing of the
posting for public accessibility.
NIH strongly encourages authors to post for public accessibility as soon as
possible (and within twelve months of the publisher's official date of final
publication). NIH expects that only in limited cases will authors deem it necessary
to select the longest delay period.
A number of
PIs have already submitted manuscripts and papers. For others to
enjoy the benefits of the Policy, please follow the submission process
outlined below. Through submission, PIs can fulfill the existing
requirement to provide publications as part of progress reports, and
integrate manuscripts into the tools of PMC thereby increasing the
visibility of your research and enhancing the likelihood of early and
increased citation.
For more
information about the NIH Public Access Policy, please visit:
http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/.
For details about the submission process, view the Public Access Policy Authors' Manual at http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/publicaccess_Manual.htm.
NIH welcomes comments and suggestions about the submission
process. Please contact NIH at PublicAccess@nih.gov
.
During the NLM Update at the Medical Library Association conference in San Antonio, Betsy Humphreys, Deputy Director, National Library of Medicine
encouraged health science librarians to:
Looking for information to send to people in your organization? Send them to: http://nnlm.gov/ner/newsletter/18/techtimes18.html#authorinfo
National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Policy on Enhancing
Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research
(Public Access Policy).
What does the policy say?
How do authors submit their manuscripts?
How will authors benefit from submitting their full text articles to PMC?
Will NIH's Public Access Policy harm scientific publishing?
Resources
What does the policy say?
The Policy requests and strongly encourages all
NIH-funded investigators to make their peer-reviewed author final
manuscripts available to other researchers and the public at the NIH
National Library of Medicine's (NLM) PubMed Central (PMC) (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov) immediately after the final date of journal publication. Authors
are given the option to release their manuscripts at a later time, up to 12
months after the official date of final publication. NIH expects that only
in limited cases will authors deem it necessary to select the longest delay
period.
NIH is requesting that authors submit manuscripts
resulting from 1) currently funded NIH research projects or 2) previously
supported NIH research projects accepted for publication on or after May 2,
2005. 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 applies to peer-reviewed, original
research publications that have been supported in whole or in part with
direct costs from NIH, but it does not apply to book chapters, editorials,
reviews, or conference proceedings. Publications resulting from
non-NIH-supported research projects should not be submitted.
How do authors submit their
manuscripts?
- Go to the
NIH manuscript submission (NIHMS) system (http://www.nihms.nih.gov/).
- Select the appropriate login
option (Note: the same login should be used for all subsequent visits to the
NIHMS system)
- NIH
extramural investigators select "eRA Commons" (see "What is the NIH eRA
Commons?" in the Authors' Manual (http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/publicaccess_Manual.htm)).
- NIH
intramural employees select "NIH."
- Provide basic information,
including the journal title, PI, contact information, and associated NIH
award number(s).
- Upload the
complete text of your manuscript(s). The NIHMS supports a wide variety of
file types (MS Word, Word Perfect, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.).
- Upload any
corresponding, supplemental image files that contain figures, tables, or
supplementary information along with the manuscript. Just as provided to
publishing journals, submit high-resolution images to ensure that they can
be viewed properly in PMC. Any supplemental material submitted to the
accepting journal in support of the manuscript will be accepted also. The
NIHMS will generate a receipt of the uploaded files in PDF format. The PDF
receipt summarizes the information entered into the system and merges the
manuscript's files into one viewable document.
- Confirm
that the manuscript and any additional supporting documents have been
successfully received by NIHMS, and verify the document.
- Review and
approve the Submission Statement and specify the timing of posting of the
final manuscript for public accessibility through PMC (this must be
completed by the PI). Authors and/or their institutions should ensure that
their final manuscript submissions to PMC are consistent with any other
agreements, including copyright assignments that they may have made with
publishers or other third parties. Upon approval of the submission by the
PI, the manuscript will be converted into XML - the standardized digital
format used by PMC.
- Review the
XML manuscript as it will appear in PMC once the conversion has taken place
(PIs will be notified by e-mail when the document is ready for review) and
correct any errors, if necessary. After PI approval, the article will be
publicly accessible through PMC after the time-delay specified by the
PI.
How will authors benefit from
submitting their full text articles to PMC?
By submitting their peer-reviewed manuscripts,
authors will enjoy several benefits of the Policy. First, PIs and
institutions can use the manuscript submission as an alternative means to
fulfill the existing requirement to provide publications as part of progress
reports. Current NIH grants policy for progress reporting requires that one
copy of each publication not previously submitted, including manuscripts
submitted or accepted for publication, be provided to NIH. Beginning with
progress reports submitted August 1, 2005 (i.e., progress report submissions
for Fiscal Year 2006 funding), a reference to the PMC submission
identification number may be included in progress reports in lieu of
submitting a hard copy of the publication. If this method of submission is
chosen by the grantee, this will replace the hard copy submission for any
"published" or "accepted for publication" manuscripts. Please note that
other aspects of annual Progress Reporting cannot be completed through the
NIHMS system. Those materials must be submitted through the normal Progress
Report submission process.
Second, by adding their manuscripts to PMC,
authors benefit from the modern information technology tools already
available (e.g., PubMed, GenBank, Genome Map Viewer, Molecular Database,
MedlinePlus, Clinical Trials, Taxonomy, Small Molecules (PubChem), DNA,
Protein Sequences, and Protein Structures, etc.) that are being used
currently with thousands of full text articles already submitted by 178
journals. These tools will help scientists explore information across
scientific fields or within narrow topical areas. This data mining and
cross-linking of information should lead to new lines of research, as well
as more comprehensive approaches to understanding the diverse and ever
expanding amounts and types of scientific data.
Lastly, authors have the ability to ensure timely
public access to their research manuscripts. Once their manuscripts are
electronically available to the public and researchers through PMC, authors
benefit from higher visibility of their research. In addition, publishers
can submit the full text journal article and any publisher links to the
article or article corrections for posting on PMC.
Will NIH's Public Access Policy harm scientific publishing?
At this time, NIH is not aware that there will be a substantial impact. For example, only a portion of articles published in scientific journals result from research funded by the NIH. As such, it is unlikely that scientists and libraries would use the NIH Public Access Policy as the rationale for replacing their journal subscriptions. If they did, they would be able to access only a fraction of a journal's content. With regard to subscriptions, it is also important to note that there are many other components of journals, such as science news, industry information, literature reviews, job announcements, functional websites, and other time-sensitive products that bring value to the reader; these are not a part of the PubMed Central archive.
An increasing number of journals already provide access to the published article immediately or within one year of the publication. Most of the highly cited journals provide some form of public access within this timeframe.
In addition, the NIH Public Access Policy does not affect authors' freedom to choose the vehicle or venue for publishing their results. NIH expects that its awardees will continue to publish the results of their research consistent with their professional autonomy and judgment, in order to advance science as efficiently and comprehensively as possible.
Resources
* From the NLM Update: Part II, presented by Betsy L. Humphreys, Deputy Director, National
Library of Medicine, during the Medical Library Association Annual Meeting, Tuesday, May 17, 2005, in San Antonio, Texas.
(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/od/presentations/2005_MLA_update.ppt)
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