Skip to Main Content University Library LibGuides

NIH Public Access Policy Compliance: NIH Manuscript Submission

How to Submit Your Manuscript

After submitting to a journal and getting your publication accepted, you should make sure that it is compliant with the NIH's policies. Depending on your journal/publisher's method, there are a few different steps to take.

Refer to the Update NCBI My Bibliography section if you need any help updating your "My Bibliography".

Method A: You paid your APCs for open access and the journal submitted the publication for you. You are done; your article is compliant! Update your NCBI "My Bibliography" to confirm this.

Method B: You paid your APCs for open access and the journal submitted the publication for you. You are done; your article is compliant! Update your NCBI "My Bibliography" to confirm this.

Method C: Follow the steps below to ensure that your publication is compliant:

  1. Upload the final, accepted manuscript files to NIHMS, either through the "Edit Status" button on your NCBI "My Bibliography" or through the NIHMS wizard. Be sure to include any supplementary material and figures. You will also assign a reviewer at this stage (this person will receive emails from NIHMS throughout the process).
  2. Associate funding to the article and provide the Initial Approval of the material.
  3. Wait for NIHMS covert your files to a PubMed Central ready document
  4. Approve the final version of the PubMed Central document. The assigned reviewer will receive ONE email from NIHMS as a notification to do this.
  5. Your article is given a PMCID and is now compliant. Update your NCBI "My Bibliography" to confirm this.

Method D:

  1. Confirm that the Publisher has submitted your files. Do this by searching NIHMS using the article's title or PMID. If no record exists for your publication, contact your publisher.
  2. Wait for an email from NIHMS to perform your initial approval. All members of the author team and the PI should be alert for this email. Typically, the publisher will choose the corresponding author or the last author, but there is not standard. Each journal has their own method for this and may or may not let you know what that method is.
  3. Perform the initial approval when the email is received.
  4. Wait for NIHMS covert your files to a PubMed Central ready document.
  5. Approve the final version of the PubMed Central document. The assigned reviewer will receive ONE email from NIHMS as a notification to do this.
  6. Your article is given a PMCID and is now compliant. Update your NCBI "My Bibliography" to confirm this.