NIH Public Access Policy: Overview of the NIH Public Access Policy

Step 1: Investigate the journal’s policies before submission:

• Journals that require a 12-month embargo on PubMed Central or Institutional Repositories will likely require paying an Article Processing Charge (APC) to publish the article as open access and comply with the NIH policy. 
• Review the “For Authors” page and look at the journal’s policies for authors with NIH funding.
  • Use “Command F” or “CTRL F” to search for “NIH” or “embargo” or “open access” within the policy
• Check journal’s self-archiving policies on JISC Open Policy Finder. Verify information on Open Policy Finder with the journal/publisher
• Look up the journal on the Publisher Response Tracking Sheet to find specific journal policies related to the NIH Public Access Policy.
• Open Access agreements between publishers and George Washington University are located on the Scholarly Publishing guide

Step 2: Understand your rights as an author:

• Review Author Rights on the Scholarly Publishing guide. Decide which rights you wish to retain as the original author of a manuscript
• Based on the rights you wish to retain, determine which Creative Commons license you wish to use for the final published version of the manuscript. If you need assistance selecting a Creative Commons license, use the License Chooser Tool

Step 3: Check if your journal deposits directly to PubMed Central:

• Journals that submit directly to PMC can be found in the PMC Journal List, and journals that deposit some articles in PMC (usually after paying an APC for open access publishing) can be found in the Selective Depository Collections 
• Confirm with publisher if they will archive the manuscript on behalf of the author
• Check Publisher Response Tracking Sheet for publisher’s response to policies regarding the updated NIH Public Access Policy (zero-embargo) 

Step 4: Review instructions for submitting to PMC:

• Determine which manuscript version may be uploaded to PubMed Central
• Log into NIH Manuscript Submission System. Assign a delegate to submit a manuscript on behalf of the author (if applicable)

Step 1: Select the appropriate publication option:

• Many journals are hybrid journals that provide two options:
  • Open Access Publishing: the author pays an APC to make their article Gold Open Access, and freely available to all readers
  • Subscription Model: articles are published behind a paywall and are only available to readers who pay to access the article.
• For journals that require a 12-month embargo or payment:
  • You will likely be required to pay an APC to make the article open access and submit to PMC.
  • Submitted to PMC without paying for Gold Open Access with a journal that requires a 12-month embargo, should be done at your own risk.
• For journals that don’t require payment:
  • Some journals do not require payment or a 12-month embargo to comply with the policy.
  • These journals often require authors to submit manuscripts to the NIH Manuscript Submission System manually.
  • Review the journal's policies to ensure you comply.
    • Some journals ask authors to wait until the article is formally published in an issue, instead of submitting the online

Step 2: Confirm PMC submission and PMCID assignment:

• Confirm if the publisher will submit the manuscript to PMC on behalf of the author and when a PMCID will be assigned.
• If the publisher does not submit the manuscript to PMC on behalf of the author, log into NIH Manuscript Submission System and submit the approved version of the manuscript yourself.

Step 3: Review and agree to the publisher's required license:

• Review the publisher's license to ensure that it grants NIH the right to make the manuscript publicly available immediately upon publication with no embargo. 
• Agree and sign the license agreement if it meets this requirement.

Step 4: Track submission status: 

• Track your manuscript’s status using the NIH’s Public Access Compliance Monitor (PACM).
• Approve proofs and ensure article is made publicly available in PMC.

Step 1: Citing your article:

• Use the PMCID when citing all NIH grant-supported publications.
  • Need help formatting citations? 
    • SMHS, GWSPH, and GW Nursing researchers should contact bsmith91@gwu.edu
    • All other schools/departments, please reach out to libdata@gwu.edu

Step 2: Update your Biosketch and/or author profile(s):

• Update your Biosketch and other author profiles (such as ORCiD) to include your new published article!
• Need help updating your biosketch and/or author profile?
  • SMHS, GWSPH, and GW Nursing researchers should contact bsmith91@gwu.edu
  • All other schools/departments, please reach out to libdata@gwu.edu