Are you complying with the NIH Public Access Policy?

Despite the fact that the NIH Public Access Policy has been in existence since 2008, many federally-funded researchers still seem to know very little about the policy.  The policy was created to ensure that the public has access to the results of federally-funded research.  In other words, the people who pay the taxes that support your research should be able to see the results of these expenditures.  Historically, results were primarily available only by paying fees to journals for subscriptions or access.  The policy led to the creation of PubMed Central, which is a separate database from PubMed.  According to the Public Access Policy, scientists must submit the final manuscripts of all publications arising from NIH-funded research to PubMed Central immediately upon acceptance for publication.  This will result in the publication eventually being assigned a PMCID, which is the number that is required in the Publications section of your NIH biosketch.  Confused?  Visit the NIH Public Access Homepage, which provides step-by-step instructions and helpful information.