Knowledge Guides: NIH Public Access Compliance: Steps of Submitting

Step 1: Prepare the manuscript

Review the journal's Instructions to Authors for any specific information or instructions related to the NIH Public Access Policy.
Designate someone (PI, author, staff member) to ensure that the manuscript moves along in the process to deposit in PubMed Central. Ultimately, the PI is responsible.
If you are an author but not the PI, notify PI that you are working on a manuscript so s/he can plan to follow its progress.
Register for a My NCBI account
Link to eRA Commons account: Sign in to your NCBI account and click on your username that displays at the top right of the browser page. This will take you to your account settings page. The "Linked Account" section will display a list of accounts currently linked to your NCBI account. To add a new linked account, click on the "Change" button in the Linked Account section. Choose the account type you wish to link from the "Login Account Options" table and enter your credentials on the sign in page for that resource.

Communicate your need to comply with NIH's Public Access Policy. [Sample letter, use same one]
Agree on who will be responsible for submitting the manuscript to the NIH Manuscript Submission system (NIHMS). Methods A, B, and D, the publisher submits manuscript; for Method C, the author or designate submits.

Regardless of which submission method is used, take the time to ensure that the submission has occurred.
Review and approve NIHMS submissions when requested. 1) approval of PDF receipt, and 2) approval of web version once formatting is complete.
Use My Bibliography to link publications to Awards and to monitor compliance.

Use the NIHMSID number or the notation "PMC Journal - In Process" for up to 3 months after the article is published.
Use PMCID number when it's available. You can use a PubMed ID (PMID) to find the corresponding PMCID/NIHMSID with the PMCID Converter.
Use MyNCBI/My Bibliography to manage your compliance to the NIH Public Access Policy. You may share your My Bibliography collection with a delegate to assist with managing the bibliography. [video]
Use My Bibliography to generate a PDF of publications to submit with Research Performance Progress Reports.

Below are links to publisher policies and contacts. More publishers may be found here.