NIH-funded Authors: Addressing Non-compliant Papers!

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As we all know, it is important for NIH awardees to ensure their papers are compliant with the NIH Public Access Policy.  There are four reasons why a non-compliant paper may actually be exempt from the policy:

  1. The paper was not peer-reviewed.
  2. The paper was accepted for publication before April 7, 2008.
  3. The paper was published in a script other than Latin (e.g., Russian, Japanese)
  4. The paper indicated in the text (e.g., in the acknowledgements section) that the research was a result of a NIH grant.  Sometimes authors mention grants that did not directly fund the creation of their paper. Although this information is incorrect, it is captured in the compliance monitor.  

For papers that can be linked to one of the reasons above, the following instructions are helpful in removing the paper from the NIH Public Access Compliance Monitor.

To remove a paper from the compliance monitor:
1. Log in to your My NCBI account.
2. Go to My Bibliography and click on the “Manage My Bibliography” link.
3. Locate the non-compliant paper in your list of citations and click the “Edit Status” link.
4. Select the reason that this article is exempt from the submission requirements of the NIH Public Access Policy.
5. Save your changes but do NOT delete the citation from My Bibliography. When the compliance monitor is next updated it will capture your changes and the paper will be removed.

If you cannot find the paper in My Bibliography:
1. Go to PubMed, enter the article’s PMID into the search box, and click search.
2. Use PubMed’s “Send to” feature to add the paper to My Bibliography.
3. Go to My Bibliography and click on the “Manage My Bibliography” link.
4. Find the new citation and assign the relevant grant number(s) to it.
5. Now click the “Edit Status” link for this citation.
6. Select the reason that this article is exempt from the submission requirements of the NIH Public Access Policy.
7. Save your changes but do NOT delete this citation from My Bibliography. When the compliance monitor is next updated it will capture your changes and the paper will be removed.

Using the Award Display in My Bibliography is a helpful feature for eRA Commons users to see whether their publications are compliant.

For an overview of the NIH Public Access Policy and guidance regarding compliance, visit the Library’s NIH Public Access Policy LibGuide.  Important sections in this guide include Policy Process, Compliance, MSK Docs, Helpful Links, and Tutorials.