New author service: PTJ makes PubMed Central deposits

Physical Therapy, June, 2008

In January 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that its voluntary Public Access Policy (NOT-OD-05-022) was now mandatory. The law states:

   The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require
   that all investigators funded 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.

This policy applies to all articles, including all graphics and supplemental materials generated by the authors, that (1) are accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008, and (2) arise in whole or in part from direct costs funded by NIH or from NIH staff. The policy also may apply to systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials that were funded by NIH. More information about the policy is available at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm and http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html.>

To assist authors with this funding requirement, PTJ will make the direct deposit to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central (PMC) on their behalf. If an author received financial support from NIH to conduct the research that is reported in an article that PTJ accepts and publishes, PTJ will submit an electronic copy of the final, published version to PMC before or soon after the time of publication (at most, within 4 weeks after publication). The National Institutes of Health Manuscript System will extract the necessary identifying information from the article and transfer it to NIH's grants management system to fulfill the authors' responsibility for providing publications as part of progress reports. The "bottom line": PTJ authors do not have to deposit their accepted manuscripts. In fact, because PTJ has entered into an agreement with NIH to provide direct deposits, authors will be blocked from depositing manuscripts accepted by PTJ.

To be consistent with the spirit of NIH's public access policy, PTJ has reduced its customary 12-month embargo to allow PMC to make these articles available to the public at 6 months following publication.

   Beginning May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal
   or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC or NIH
   Manuscript Submission reference number when citing applicable
   articles that arise from their NIH funded research. This policy
   includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due
   date and subsequent due dates. (1)

If you have any questions regarding PTJ's policy on direct deposits, please contact the managing editor at janreynolds@apta.org.

To comment, submit a Rapid Response to this editorial posted online at www.ptjournal.org.

[DOI: 10.2522/ptj.2008.88.6.699]

Reference

(1) Revised policy on enhancing public access to archived publications resulting from NIH-funded research. National Institutes of Health Web site. Available at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOTOD-08-033.html. Accessed May 15, 2008.