Q.How do I determine if the NIH Public Access policy applies to me?

A. You will need to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy if your manuscript is: peer reviewed; accepted for publication in a journal on or after April 7, 2008; arises from any direct funding from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 or later, or; any direct funding from an NIH contract signed on or after April 7, 2008, or; any direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or; an NIH employee. The Policy does not apply to non-peer-reviewed materials such as correspondence, book chapters, and editorials.

Q. How do I address copyright?

Authors own the original copyrights to materials they write. Consistent with individual arrangements with authors' employing institutions, authors often transfer some or all of these rights to the publisher when the journal agrees to publish their paper. Some publishers may ask authors to transfer these rights when the paper is first submitted to the journal.

Authors should work with the publisher before any rights are transferred to ensure that all conditions of the NIH Public Access Policy can be met. Authors should avoid signing any agreements with publishers that do not allow the author to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.

Q. The journal I published in is listed as a Method D publisher, but it has been 3 months since it was accepted and My Bibliography is telling me it is not compliant (there is no NIHMS or PMC ID number).

A. No matter what method the journal is listed as, it is ultimately the author/PI's responsibility to ensure the article is submitted to PMC.  If the journal/publisher has not submitted the article after 3 months following acceptance for publication, contact them and ask why they haven't.  In the meantime, go ahead and submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript to NIHMS.  If the publisher does so later, it will override your submission, but this will ensure you are in compliance.

Q. I need to submit to the NIHMS system, but I can't find the final peer-reviewed manuscript.  Can't I just download the pdf copy from the journal's website and submit that?

A.  Unfortunately, that would be against copyright law.  If you are unable to find the final version of the manuscript (with peer-reviewed edits but not the final copy-editing formats), and none of your co-authors have a copy either, we recommend that you contact the publisher and explain your problem.  They may be able to supply a copy that you could use.  If this does not work, contact the HSHSL for assistance.

Q. I am the PI for a large teaching grant and am not an author on many of the publications that result from that funding.  Do I need to include all of those citations and ensure they are compliant?

A. Yes.  As the PI, you are responsible for ensuring all articles that are directly funded from that grant are compliant, whether or not you are an author. 

Q.  One of my articles has a NIHMS ID number but has never been added into PMC and is past the 3 month deadline for needing a PMCID number.  What is wrong and how can I fix it?

A. This is probably happening because whoever was entered into the NIHMS System as the reviewer has not responded to a request to review and approve the submission.  When publishers or delegates submit manuscripts to the NIHMS system they will select an author or PI to receive emails asking for approval of what was submitted.  If that person does not receive the email and follow the steps to approve the submission it will never make it into PMC.  Check with the PI or your co-authors to see if anyone received any message from NIHMS. Finally, you can request that the responsibility be transferred to you.

Q. My compliance report shows a paper supported by a grant on which I am one of a large number of PIs, but I don't know anything about the article.  What should I do?

A. If there is a grant with many subawards/subprojects, reports currently list all the known PIs on the grant.  NIH is trying to improve the automated matching process so that the only researchers listed are those PIs who are likely to be involved with or responsible for a paper.  In the meantime, if you are the PI on a subproject that did not contribute to the paper in any way, you may ignore the corresponding entry in the compliance monitor.  However, if you are an author of the paper or if it was supported by your NIH funding, you are required to show compliance for the paper when you report it to NIH, even if you are not the corresponding author or first author.