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NIH Public Access Policy: Submission Methods

Four Submission Methods and NIHMS/PMC

There are four methods for assignment of a PMCID. The method depends on the submission method used by journals.

  • Submission Methods A and B: the work (final, published version) is submitted directly to PMC by the journal. 
  • Submission Methods C and D: the work (final, peer-reviewed version) is submitted to NIHMS to prepare the work for posting to PMC by a journal, author or third party such as Becker Library.

Submission Methods

There are four options for compliance based on submission methods:

  1. Submission Method A:
    Author publishes in a journal that submits all NIH-funded final published articles to PubMed Central (PMC); no fee. See Method A Journal list.
  2. Submission Method B:
    Author pays a publisher a fee to submit an individual final published article to PMC. See Method B Select Deposit Publishers.
  3. Submission Method C:
    Author or third party such as Becker Library submits the final, peer-reviewed manuscript to the NIH Manuscript Submission system (NIHMS) in preparation for posting to PMC. See Method C Best Practices.
  4. Submission Method D:
    Publisher submits the final, peer-reviewed manuscript to NIHMS on behalf of NIH-funded authors in preparation for posting to PMC; no fee. See Method D Publishers list.