NIH Public Access Policy

"In January 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was directed by new legislation to mandate open access (OA) of peer-reviewed journal articles for all NIH funded research beginning on or after April 7, 2008. The law required NIH funded researchers to deposit full texts of their peer-reviewed manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine’s online archive, PubMed Central (PMC). This was seen as a major victory for the OA movement for several reasons. First, as the primary agency responsible for biomedical and health-related research, NIH was the first OA mandate as a major public funding agency in the United States. Second, and more important, enactment of the NIH public access policy provides assurance that the public has access to publications of all NIH funded research in order to advance science and improve health. The most frequently asked question regarding the NIH Public Access Policy relates to who can and how does one go about making information available through PMC? SAGE Publications is in full compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy by allowing authors to choose between 2 options. First, authors can arrange with SAGE and The Diabetes Educator to make their research freely available upon publication through the SAGE Choice program. The SAGE Choice option was designed to support authors who wish to post an OA archive copy of their published work on publication. In addition, it provides a mechanism by which authors can comply with funding body requirements. Authors are assessed a standard processing fee enabling authors to comply with NIH guidelines. With this option, SAGE will post the final peer-reviewed manuscript to PMC. Second, the author or delegate (anyone given access to the author’s files) is able to upload the final peer-reviewed manuscript to PMC via the Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS) as long as the article was funded by the NIH. Authors can go to the following site for instructions on submitting their articles to PMC (http://www.nihms.nih.gov). After authors upload their manuscript in NIHMS, a pdf is prepared and NIHMS number assigned. NIHMS sends the author an email requesting approval of material for processing. After materials are reviewed and approved, the manuscript is submitted to PMC. What is the difference between the first and second option? ..."