This presentation was provided by Pamela Shaw of Northwestern University during the NISO Webinar, Compliance with Funder Mandates, held on September 14, 2016

1. NIH Public Access Compliance
Workflow, Tips and
Complications
Presented to: NISO Webinar: Managing An Open Access World Part 2:
Compliance with Funder Mandates
Presented on: September 14, 2016
Presented by: Pamela L Shaw, Biosciences & Bioinformatics Librarian, Public
Access Compliance Reporter; Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern
University Feinberg School of Medicine

2. NIH Public Access Policy
Brief background
• Terms and database names
• The mandate
• Enforcement

3. Terms and Database Names
• PubMed and PMID
 NIH’s database of citations and abstracts. Citations in PubMed are given
a PMID (PubMed identifier)
• PubMed Central (PMC) and PMCID
 NIH’s database of free full-text manuscripts. Papers supported by NIH
funding are required to be deposited to PMC. Papers in PMC are given
PMCID (PubMed Central identifier)
• eRA Commons
 NIH’s system for grant reporting and tracking. Only accessible to PIs,
administrators, assistants, grant officers and compliance reporters.
• NIH Manuscript Submission system - NIHMS
• Public Access Compliance Monitor (database) - PACM
• Public Access Compliance Report (person) – PACR
• My NCBI : My Bibliography & Other Citations
 NIH system for grantees to associate manuscripts with NIH funding
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4. The NIH Public Access Policy (“NIH PA”)
• The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division F Section 217 of PL
111-8 (Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009). The law states:
The Director of the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") shall require
in the current fiscal year and thereafter that all investigatorsfunded
by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library
of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final,
peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be
made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date
of publication: Provided, that the NIH shall implement the public
access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.
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5. Since 2013: Increased enforcement of NIH Policy for
Progress Reports
In February of 2013, the NIH announced that it will begin enforcing the Public
Access Policy for all noncompeting grant renewals beginning in July 2013.
What does this mean?
From the announcement:
For non-competing continuation grant awards with a start date of July 1, 2013
or beyond:
• 1) NIH will delay processing of an award if publications arising from it are
not in compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.
• 2) Investigators will need to use My NCBI to enter papers onto progress
reports. Papers can be associated electronically using the RPPR, or included
in the PHS 2590 using the My NCBI generated PDF report.
• Please see NOT-OD-12-160 for more details.
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6. Relationships
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eRA Commons, PMC, NIHMS,MyNCBI/MyBibliography
Grants
Full text: 12 months
NIHMSID
(only validfor 3 months
post-publication)
PMCID
(3 months)

7. NIH Compliance Workflow
– one library’s example
• Assisting with tracking
• Assisting with deposit to NIHMS

8. Assisting researchers with
tracking NIH compliance
• Steps to gain the most access to grant +
manuscript information

9. Step 1: Become an NIH eRA Commons PACR
Tip: Make friends with your Office for
Sponsored Research/Projects!
• Ask your eRA Commons Accounts
Administrator to assign you the role of
NIH Public Access Compliance Report
(PACR)
 There can be more than one PACR at
an institution
• Once you receive your eRA Commons
username, go to eRA Commons to
manage/change your password.
Tip: You will have to change your eRA
Commons password about 3-4 times a
year. Keep track of them!
This is helpfulforfull access togrant +manuscript associations
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10. Step 2: Create a My NCBI account
• Easy way to get to My NCBI: Links from PubMed
• Or go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/
(Ifyoudon’talready have one)
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11. Step 2: Create a My NCBI account
• Register for an NCBI account
 Notice that there is an eRA Commons
login button.
• Youwilluse this tologin afteryouhave linked your
eRACommonsaccount toMy NCBI(moreonthat
later)
• If you already have an NCBI account (but
it’s not linked to an eRA Commons
account), you can log in directly to NCBI
using the Sign In section
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12. Step 3: Link your eRA Commons account to My NCBI
• Log in to your My NCBI account
• Once logged in, click on your username in the upper right to access your
Account
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13. Step 3: Link your eRA Commons account to My NCBI
• In My NCBI Account Settings
 Go to the “Linked accounts”
section
 Click on the “Change” button
 Use the search box to search for
“NIH” and click on
“NIH & eRA Commons”
 At the eRA Commons page, log
in
 You will then be taken back to
My NCBI and logged in via eRA
• After linking your accounts, you can
just click on the eRA Commons log
in button in My NCBI to log in in the
future
13http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3842/#MyNCBI.Adding_a_Partner_Organization_as

14. Why should you become an NIH PACR?
• Searching PubMed, managing citations is natural for
librarians
• Therefore, it’s natural that at least one PACR at each
institution should be in the library
• As a PACR, you can access the PACM database (more on
that later)
• Your Office for Sponsored Research will love you
 You take some of the work off their shoulders by
answering questions on NIH manuscript compliance,
so they can work on the rest of an NIH proposal’s
documents
• Your research administrators and PIs will love you, too
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I love my
library’s
PACR!

15. NIH Compliance Tracking
Databases
• PACM
• My NCBI: My Bibliography / Other Citations

16. NIH compliance tracking databases: PACM
• NIH Public Access Compliance Monitor
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/utils/pacm/
• Login via My NCBI, using the eRA Commons login
• Only accessible to PACR role
• Updated 2x a week
• User guide at
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/utils/pacm/static/pacm-user-guide.pdf
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17. NIH compliance tracking databases: PACM
• Search by PMID or grant #
• View compliance status for past year or set a range
• Click on any blue text number to view detailed entries in that
category
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18. NIH compliance tracking databases: PACM
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19. NIH compliance tracking databases: PACM
• Handy: copy PMIDs for transfer to PubMed search to add to My
NCBI’s Other Citations
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20. NIH compliance tracking databases: PACM
• Export .csv
 CSV file has lots of extra information that you can use for contact and
follow up (manuscript title, first author, NIHMS named contact-if any)
• Sorted by PMID – deduplicate, if desired
• Re-sort by PI name
• Gather all PMIDs for each PI and associated grant info
• Check against records in My NCBI (time consuming, but valuable)
• Send emails to investigators listing their non-compliant manuscripts,
associated grants, what steps they need to take, and links to instructions for
NIHMS
Workflowtips
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21. NIH compliance tracking databases:
My NCBI’s Other Citations
• Every My NCBI user has a “My Bibliography” and an “Other Citations”
under “Collections” on the My NCBI page
 Use My Bibliography to track your own publications
 Use Other Citations to track other authors’ publications
• Go to PubMed, click “Sign in to My NCBI”, log in to My NCBI with your
eRA Commons credentials
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22. NIH compliance tracking databases:
My NCBI’s Other Citations
• Do your searches in PubMed
 Paste your copied PMIDs from PACM results or search by author,
search by grant, etc.
• Click Send to > My Bibliography > Add to My Bibliography
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23. NIH compliance tracking databases:
My NCBI’s Other Citations
• On the next page, choose Other Citations and Save
• Now go to your Other Citations
 from your My NCBI page or from the link in PubMed after you save
the results
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24. NIH compliance tracking databases:
My NCBI’s Other Citations
• In Other Citations, make sure you set the View to Award, and set Sort
by to Public Access Compliance
 This is where the eRA Commons login is essential: you won’t see
these options if you log in to a “regular” My NCBI account
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ChangingtoAward View

25. NIH compliance tracking databases:
My NCBI’s Other Citations
• You willsee statusmarkersfor NIH compliance
 If you see a ?, , no fundingis linkedto the paper
 If the dot is green,the paperhas receiveda PMCID numberalready and is
compliantwiththe NIH PA policy
 If the dot is yellow, the papermay be a “PMC journal– In process”or in
processat NIHMS, but not past 3 months post-publicationdate
• If it is in process at NIHMS, it willbecome non-compliant by 3 months post-publication date, so you
willneed to followit in NIHMS
 If the dot is red, it is out of compliance with the NIH PA policy. Action should
be taken to bringit intocompliance
 If you see a “na”, the paperis not subject to the policy, because it was
publishedbeforethe April2008, or it is of a type that is not subject to the
policy (meetingabstract,software,book section,etc.)
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26. Some notes about PMC Journals
• A “PMC Journal” is a journal that automatically deposits ALL content to
PubMed Central
• No action is required by authors to deposit manuscripts to NIHMS when
they publish with PMC Journals
 However, authors may have to associate their grants with these
manuscripts in My Bibliography or Other Citations
• Unfortunately, many journals are NOT PMC Journals
• List of PMC Journals can be found at:
 http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm
Tip: Bookmark the list of PMC Journals
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27. Researcher FAQs
Researchers don’t know how papers are assigned PMCIDs
and how their progress reports interact with My
Bibliography. This is an ongoing educational and
communication opportunity.
Sarah will discuss this communication and education in her
presentation.
We also have a page of FAQs and answers up at our library
site for researchers to consult.

28. NIH compliance tracking databases:
My NCBI’s Other Citations
• You may see locks next to awards in My Bibliography or Other Citations
 a silver lock indicates that paper was officially reported on a progress
report via eRA Commons
• Assoonas a paper is associatedwitha grant, it willbe automatically importedtothe annual
progressreport forthat award, anda lockwillbe added to the grant + manuscriptassociation
 A gold lock indicates that the award was associated with the
publication through NIHMS
• Instruct the PI of the affected grant(s) to:
 Contact their grants officer to amend the progress report to remove
the silver lock (this usually is not successful)
 Contact NIHMS to remove a gold lock
• As a PACR, you can perform these requests on behalf of the PI, but I have
found it’s better for the PI to pursue lock removal
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Locks

29. Big Tip
At every opportunity, advise your researchers to read their
author agreements and indicate that they are NIH funded
on those agreements, and provide publishers with the
relevant grant numbers.
• Some non-PMC publishers will assist authors by depositing the post-
print (post-peer reviewed) version of the manuscript to NIHMS, when
they see that it is NIH-funded
Sarah will talk more about this in her presentation.
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30. Assisting researchers with
NIHMS
• Assisting with manuscript deposit
• Assisting with tracking

31. Depositing papers to NIHMS
• Begin depositing to NIHMS using two options:
 From “Edit status” links from My Bibliography or Other citations
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Getting started

32. Depositing papers to NIHMS
• Or go directly to NIHMS
 http://nihms.nih.gov
• You will need:
 Appropriate grant numbers for attribution
 Proper version to deposit: author’s “post-print” (post-peer reviewed
manuscript; figures and tables can be separate files); can be a Word
document
• Youmustinclude all supplemental materials,ifthey werepart ofthe published manuscript
Note: this is where an institutional repository comes in handy. Encourage
your researchers to deposit post-prints to your IR as soon as they are
accepted (copyright allowing). This way you don’t have to go hunting for files.
Tip: Whenever possible, train and encourage research administrators or
assistants to manage NIHMS deposit. PIs will often not have time for this.
Training assistants will save time for you and for the PIs.
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Getting started

33. Depositing papers to NIHMS
• Log in to NIHMS with your eRA
Commons credentials
• After logging in, click Submit New
Manuscript button on the right
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34. Depositing papers to NIHMS
• Follow prompts on the subsequent pages to
1. Enter citation information
• Youcantype it in, oruse a PMIDnumber to searchforit
2. Associate grant numbers
3. Upload manuscript & approve upload
4. Name reviewer
Notes on naming reviewers:
• Only a PI of the associated grant or an author can be a reviewer.
 You as PACR cannot be named a reviewer.
• Any author can be a reviewer (it doesn’t have to be first or senior author)
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35. Depositing papers to NIHMS
• Once your deposit is complete, the paper will receive an NIHMSID
 This ID is good only up to 3 months post-publication date
 You can deposit a paper before its publication date, but it helps to have
more complete citation information
• Named Reviewer will receive two emails:
 To review and approve the deposited manuscript files
 To review and approve the final PMC-ready PDF
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36. NIHMS - Where things go wrong
• Paper has been associated with a grant, but the first author who has the
files has left the institution. NOBODY HAS THE FILES!!!
 Contact the publisher and ask them to deposit the appropriate file
• Many publishers are responsivetothis, if youaskthem as the PACR ofthe institution—some
are not
• Ifpublisher does notrespond, prepare a versionto deposit
• Named reviewer is not responding to NIHMS prompts to review manuscript
 Ask the PI of the associated grant to log in to NIHMS and “Claim” the
manuscript, so s/he can assume Reviewer control
 If it’s the PI who is not responsive, ask another author to claim the
manuscript
• YouasPACR cannot claim a manuscript
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37. NIHMS – Assisting with tracking
• Import all NIHMS manuscripts you are tracking into Other Citations
• For each manuscript you track, place a “Watch request” in NIHMS
 In the manuscript’s record in NIHMS, click the “Watch manuscript”
button
 A request will be sent to the designated Reviewer to approve your watch
request
 Watched manuscripts display more information to you
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38. NIHMS – Assisting with tracking
• Use context-specific help links from each NIHMS record to contact NIHMS
Help Desk for questions regarding that record
 Found in the lower right corner of the record’s web page
 Help Desk form will be pre-populated with the NIHMS ID
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39. General Tips

40. General tips
• Dedicate time to your PACR / NIH compliance duties
 Half a day per week or more
• Place reminders in your calendar to check tracked manuscripts
• Work in a way that makes sense
 Work on compliance with a whole department, then move on to the
next OR
 Work on compliance for manuscripts that are most likely to be added to
progress reports soon
• Communicatewithofficeforsponsoredprojects,researchadministrators,researchassistants
and PIsto findout whentheir progressreportsare due
• Get out and advocate “early and often” compliance
 Ask to present to departments’ faculty or administrators
 Offer classes in the library
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41. NIH Public Access
Complications

42. General complications
• Databases are not in agreement
 Papers listed as non-compliant in PACM, when imported to Other
Citations, have no grants associated with them
 Similarly, grant numbers display in PubMed record (under “Grant
Support”), but when imported to Other Citations, have no
associated grants
• Thismay be because the PI dissociatedthe grant from the paper, when it might
have had grant numbers added via the publisher’s metadata
 When in doubt, I trust My NCBI (My Bibliography or Other
Citations) over PACM, because it is probably the most current data
available
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43. General complications
• Researchers and their support staff are easily
overwhelmed by this process
 Sarah will talk more about educating researchers
• I have not yet developed an automated workflow for
this…
 Setting watches in NIHMS helps (semi-automatic)
 Setting automatic searches in PubMed for large project grants
• But this onlyworksif investigatorslinkpapersto the grants
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44. Other libraries’ solutions
• Countway Library - Harvard
 Set up a dedicated “Publisher” status in NIHMS to deposit
manuscripts
 Set up an FTP drop site for batch manuscript uploads
 Developed Public aXis: utility linked to institutional repository
HMScholar, to facilitate deposit to NIHMS/PMC
 Lapinski PS, Osterbur D, Parker J, McCray A. Supporting Public
Access to Research Results. College & Research Libraries.
2014;75(1):20-33.
• Many other libraries have PACRs assigned to library and
have developed communication workflows
 See Sarah’s presentation
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45. Resources
• NIH Public Access page
 http://publicaccess.nih.gov/
 Great resource, links to FAQs, Help, all other relevant databases
• Other libraries’ NIH guides
 Just Google "NIH public access policy” AND library, and you’ll find a
bunch
• Cornell’s beautiful infographic at:
 https://librariandesignshare.org/2015/12/10/nih-compliance-in-four-steps/
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46. Questions?
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47. Thank You
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