PubMed Central Submission System Now Available

Posted by nwsoadmin on June 9th, 2005 Posted in: News from NLM

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At the end of May, the National Institutes of Health sent this message to NIH-funded researchers:
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Dear Extramural Research Community,

The purpose of this e-mail is to share with you some of the benefits of the NIH Public Access
Policy and to describe the simple process by which Principal Investigators (PIs) and authors
can now submit their peer-reviewed final manuscripts to NIH’s PubMed Central (PMC) at
http://nihms.nih.gov/.

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, see below or view the Public Access Policy Authors’
Manual at http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/publicaccess_Manual.htm. We welcome comments
and suggestions about the submission process. Please contact us at PublicAccess@nih.gov .

We look forward to your participation and wish you continued success in your research
endeavors.

Sincerely,

Norka Ruiz Bravo, Ph.D. Jo Anne Goodnight

Deputy Director for Extramural Research Acting Director, Office of Extramural Programs

Office of the Director Office of the Director
National Institutes of Health National Institutes of Health

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?

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.

Resources

+ Public Access Policy Website: http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/
+ NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) System: http://www.nihms.nih.gov/
+ Public Access Policy in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html
+ Implementation Plan: http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/publicaccess_imp.htm
+ Questions and Answers: http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/publicaccess_QandA.htm
+ Public Access Policy Mailbox: PublicAccess@nih.gov