Federal Agencies Public Access Policies

This guide is intended for use by the researchers at Rutgers University. It covers an overview and requirements of the policy, addressing copyright issues, submission methods, citing PMCID, and how to manage compliance.

Address Copyright Issues

Authors must ensure that the publication agreement or similar copyright transfer agreement allows the author's manuscript to be posted to PubMed Central (PMC) in accordance with the NIH Public Access Policy. Final, peer-reviewed manuscripts must be posted to the NIHMS upon acceptance for publication, and be made publicly available on PMC no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.

When initially submitting an article to a publisher, notify the publisher that the research reported in the manuscript is subjected to the NIH Policy and acceptance of the publication will require compliance with the NIH policy.

Sample wording is included below that you can add to a publisher’s agreement to ensure that you can fulfill the policy:

Additional Term to Confirm NIH Public Access Deposit

"The Journal acknowledges that the Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for journal publication, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after publication by the Journal."

Author___________________________________ Date________________________

Publisher ________________________________ Date _______________________