NIH Public Access Policy

Prepare to monitor compliance through MyNCBI's My Bibliography

• Link your MyNCBI's My Bibliography to your eRA Commons account to give you access to monitoring submission compliance
• Manually add your manuscript info as a new citation that is "forthcoming" in your MyNCBI's My Bibliography. Once you get your NIHMS ID, you can "edit status" of your citation to add the new NIHMS ID
• Watch for receipt of your temporary NIHMS ID number by email to either the PI or the corresponding author

What is NCBI and My Bibliography?

• NCBI stands for the National Center for Biotechnology Information, providing access to biomedical and genomic information.

My Bibliography

• My Bibliography is a reference tool in My NCBI. This tool allows users to save references directly from PubMed or add references. Researchers can use My Bibliography to manage compliance with NIH Public Access Policy and to insert selected publications in a new NIH biosketch through SciENcv. 
• My Bibliography FAQ
   

Creating and Linking My NCBI + eRA Commons Accounts

Effective July 23, 2013, PIs and PD's must use My NCBI's "My Bibliography" tool to manage their bibliographies. If you do not have an NCBI Account, you need to create one by following the steps below:

• Click "Log In" in the upper right corner of  the New PubMed and then sign up for an account. Note: If you have never used NCBI, you are strongly recommended to log in to NCBI either via NIH Login or your eRA Commons account. Signing in through one of the Partner Organizations will automatically sync with your NCBI Account. 

If you already have a My NCBI Account, you need to link your account to your eRA Commons account. Here is how you can link the two accounts:

• Log into NCBI in the upper right corner of PubMed (pubmed.gov).
• Once you logged in your NCBI, click on your username right to in the upper right corner (right to My NCBI).
• Then click on the "Account Settings" button for "Linked Accounts" under NCBI account settings.
  
• Go to "Linked Accounts" and click "Add Account:
• Search for "eRA commons"
  
• Login to your "eRA Commons" to add account.

If you receive an error message when trying to link accounts, you will need to contact NCBI directly to have them manually link your eRA Commons account with your current My NCBI account. 

• NCBI Contact info:
  • Email: info@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Include in your email the following:​
    • MyNCBI username
    • eRA Commons username  (Note: you do not need to send any passwords)
    • Email address 

At any time, you can login to NIHMS (with your eRA commons or My NCBI credentials) and look up your status with either the PMID or NIHMSID. There are several approval steps involved in getting an article through this system. By looking it up, you can find out where it is in that process and who has been assigned to manage it (i.e., the reviewer).

Depending on your status, you may need to contact the reviewer to remind them to approve the manuscript, contact NIHMS if there are any issues or delays on their end, or reassign reviewer duties to yourself, another author (or the PI). 

The PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) is different from the PubMed reference number (PMID). PubMed Central is an index of full-text papers, while PubMed is an index of abstracts. The PMCID links to full-text papers in PubMed Central, while the PMID links to abstracts in PubMed. PMIDs have nothing to do with the NIH Public Access Policy.

• If you received a temporary NIHMS number, this number will be replaced with a PMCID number when the submission process is complete; it is essential that when you get your NIHMS ID number that you assign it to your manuscript citation in My Bibliography as this will update automatically when the PMCID is available.
• The PMCID is posted in PubMed as soon as an article has been processed (usually at the time of publication). 
• You can verify that you have a PMCID number using the PMCID converter tool.
• PMCIDs are used as proof of 2024 NIH Public Access Policy compliance.

You are required to provide the PMCID number when citing your papers. 

If you have not yet received a PMCID number, use the following in your citation:

• If the journal has submitted the paper for you and you have not received the PMCID number (e.g., in Methods A or B), use: “PMC Journal - In Process.”
• If the journal is not on the approved “automatic submission” list but has submitted on your behalf (e.g., in Method D), you will need to provide a valid NIHMSID number (not more than three months old).
• If you submitted the manuscript, you will need to provide a valid NIHMSID number (not more than three months old) as in Method C.

The appropriate citation format is to list the PMCID number at the end of the full journal citation.

Example of a Citation with a PMCID

Sala-Torra O, Gundacker HM, Stirewalt DL, Ladne PA, Pogosova-Agadjanyan EL, Slovak ML, Willman CL, Heimfeld S, Boldt DH, Radich JP. Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) expression and outcome in adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Blood. 2007 April 1; 109(7): 3080–3083. PMCID: PMC1852221

Before the PMCID is Available

For Submission Methods A and B, use “PMC Journal - In Process”:

Sala-Torra O, Gundacker HM, Stirewalt DL, Ladne PA, Pogosova-Agadjanyan EL, Slovak ML, Willman CL, Heimfeld S, Boldt DH, Radich JP. Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) expression and outcome in adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Blood. [a publication date within 3 months of when the application, proposal or report was submitted to NIH]. PMCID: PMC Journal - In Process

For Submission Methods C and D, use the NIHMSID:

Cerrato A, Parisi M, Santa Anna S, Missirlis F, Guru S, Agarwal S, Sturgill D, Talbot T, Spiegel A, Collins F, Chandrasekharappa S, Marx S, Oliver B. Genetic interactions between Drosophila melanogaster menin and Jun/Fos. Dev Biol. In press. NIHMSID: NIHMS44135

Text from http://publicaccess.nih.gov/citation_methods.htm#examples.

RefWorks

• Exporting from PubMed or PubMed Central will include the PMCID if you use the NIH output style.

EndNote

• EndNote x3 and later come with updated files that import the PMCID into the PMC field automatically. 
• For older versions of EndNote, you will need to download an import filter and output style from EndNote's website

See more about Citation Managers on our Citation Management Guide.