The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published its "Enhanced Public Access Policy" with respect to scientific publications resulting from research supported in part or fully by NIH funds (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html). The rule requires that, as of 7 April 2008, all investigators funded by the NIH must submit (or have submitted for them) an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts, upon acceptance for publication, to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central (PMC). This must be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.
The following information is being provided to The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and The Journal of Nutrition authors and American Society for Nutrition (ASN) members to clarify key points of the NIH policy and to provide information on ASN policy with respect to the deposition of accepted manuscripts in PMC.
- Authors are requested to deposit the version of the article that has been accepted for publication and includes changes resulting from peer review.
- The NIH has indicated it will honor all copyright agreements authors have signed with publishers.
- Copyright for articles published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and The Journal of Nutrition will remain with the American Society for Nutrition. The ASN grants permission to the Principle Investigator (PI) to deposit this accepted manuscript in PubMed Central according to the NIH request, with the stipulation that the PI accepts any liability that may arise through release of the manuscript in its present form. To avoid this potential liability, the ASN suggests that the PI delay submission of this manuscript to PubMed Central until our publication office has completed all required copyediting within the next several months. At that point, the corresponding author will be provided with a finished PDF version that will represent the material to be published in the journal. Provision of the final PDF version to PubMed Central will avoid all ambiguity that could otherwise result from the presence of one incomplete and the other complete copy of the manuscript.
If the PI decides to submit the unedited version of the manuscript, a further stipulation to the release of the manuscript to the NIH is that it must contain the following statement at the top of the title page:“This is an un-copyedited author manuscript that has been accepted for publication in (journal name), copyright © American Society for Nutrition (ASN). This manuscript may not be duplicated or reproduced, other than for personal use or within the rule of ‘Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials' (section 107, Title 17, US Code) without permission of the copyright owner, the ASN. The final copyedited article, which is the version of record, can be found at http://pubs.nutrition.org/. The ASN disclaims any responsibility or liability for errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or in any version derived from it by the National Institutes of Health or other parties.”
Regardless of whether the un-copyedited version or the copyedited, final version of the manuscript is submitted to the NIH, the PI must abide by the ASN policy of making articles free online on our website as well as in the NIH repository 12 months after publication. This will satisfy both the ASN and NIH policies. - The American Society for Nutrition supports efforts to increase access to scholarly publications. All journal content is made publicly accessible, without subscription, on The Journal of Nutrition and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition websites 12 months after publication. As noted above, ASN policy and journal manuscript submission/ copyright release forms have been modified to allow public release of NIH-funded accepted manuscripts on PubMed Central 12 months after publication. This embargo period, which is consistent with ASN policy and the NIH guidelines, is necessary to safeguard subscription revenue, an essential component of journal operating budgets.
The full text of the NIH Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-Funded Research is available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-022.html. Additional details will be available at http://nihms.nih.gov/. If you have questions about the ASN response to the NIH policy, please feel free to contact ASN at journal@nutrition.org.