NIH Public Access Policy Help Guide

The PMCID is posted in PubMed as soon as an article has been successfully processed by PMC, which usually occurs around the time of publication. 

• The easiest way to find and track PMCIDs is to add the paper to My NCBI and My Bibliography
• Training resources for My NCBI, My Bibliography, and other resources

All reports and grant applications to NIH must include evidence of compliance with NIH Public Access Policy.  Citations to applicable articles must indicate compliance by appending notations of compliance, as described below, depending on the method of submission and the status of the submitted article.

Consider this example:

Mitchell PH, Teri L, Veith R, Buzaitis A, Tirschwell D, Becker K, Fruin M, Kohen R, Cain KC. Living well with stroke: design and methods for a randomized controlled trial of a psychosocial behavioral intervention for poststroke depression. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis. 2008 May-Jun;17(3):109-15. PubMed PMID: 18436150

Submission Method A or B

Mitchell PH, Teri L, Veith R, Buzaitis A, Tirschwell D, Becker K, Fruin M, Kohen R, Cain KC. Living well with stroke: design and methods for a randomized controlled trial of a psychosocial behavioral intervention for poststroke depression. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis. 2008 May-Jun;17(3):109-15. PubMed PMID: 18436150. PMCID: PMC Journal - In Process

Submission Method C or D 

Mitchell PH, Teri L, Veith R, Buzaitis A, Tirschwell D, Becker K, Fruin M, Kohen R, Cain KC. Living well with stroke: design and methods for a randomized controlled trial of a psychosocial behavioral intervention for poststroke depression. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis. 2008 May-Jun;17(3):109-15.NIHMSID: NIHMS49397

Eventually all submitted articles will be assigned a PMCID number

Mitchell PH, Teri L, Veith R, Buzaitis A, Tirschwell D, Becker K, Fruin M, Kohen R, Cain KC. Living well with stroke: design and methods for a randomized controlled trial of a psychosocial behavioral intervention for poststroke depression. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis. 2008 May-Jun;17(3):109-15. PMCID: PMC2396193

For more information, please see the NIH webpage Reporting Publications to NIH: Include PMCID in Citations

The NIH requires investigators to use the NCBI's My Bibliography reference management tool to generate publication summaries for progress reports to identify grant-supported journal articles, books, book chapters, and other publications.

• Step-by-step directions on setting up a My NCBI account and accessing My Bibliography
• Instructions on using My Bibliography to Manage Compliance with NIH Public Access Policy.

Librarians can assist with questions about:

1. locating PMCIDs and/or NIHMS IDs for submitted manuscripts;
2. determining whether an article has already appeared in PubMed Central; or
3. locating a journal’s general policy on NIH public access policy compliance.