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Research Guides@Tufts

NIH Public Access Policy

Tufts Hirsh Health Sciences Library's guide to complying with the NIH Public Access Policy.

Who's Responsible?

Principal Investigators and their institutions are responsible for all applicable papers that arise from their NIH funds, even if they are not an author or co-author.

We suggest that the PI determine a sustainable plan for their lab regarding PMC submission responsibilities.

Citing

Anyone submitting an application, proposal or report to the NIH must include the PMC reference number (PMCID) when citing applicable papers that they author or that arise from their NIH-funded research.

Note: The PMCID and PMID are NOT the same.  Use the PMID : PMCID Converter for articles available in PubMed.

NIH FAQs:
How do I include the PMCID in my citations?
What do I do if the PMCID has not been assigned yet?
Do I have to include a PMCID for every paper that I cite in an NIH application, proposal or progress report?

My Bibliography

As of July 23, 2010, PD/PIs are unable to enter citations manually into eRA Commons and must use My NCBI’s “My Bibliography” tool to manage their professional bibliographies.  Citations are pulled from My Bibliography to automatically appear in users' eRA Commons accounts.  My Bibliography is also required for use of the PHS 2590 progress report and the eRA Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR).

  1. Log into My NCBI through PubMed@Tufts, in order to access Tufts-subscribed full text articles.
  2. Link your eRA Commons and My Bibliography accounts from the NCBI account settings.
  3. Assign delegates, if you would like others to be able to view and manage your citations.
  4. Add citations into My Bibliography.
  5. Check the compliance status of publications.
  6. Update the compliance status, if needed.
  7. Assign awards to citation, if needed.
  8. Create an award compliance report.

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