PMCID

This page is about the new(ish) NIH requirements for including the PMCID number of journal articles in all applications, proposals, bioSketches, and reports.

This is a summary of what I learned from poking around on the NIH website.

Any manuscript that meets these criteria must follow the new rules:

• Is peer-reviewed;
• And, is accepted for publication in a journal on or after April 7, 2008;
• And, arises from:
  • Any direct funding from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 or beyond, or;
  • Any direct funding from an NIH contract signed on or after April 7, 2008, or;
  • Any direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or;
  • An NIH employee

Articles accepted for publication before April 7 2008 can be cited without a PMCID; they should instead include a URL to the full, open source version.

I get the feeling that they are being pretty strict with this new rule. Basically if we have a published manuscript that meets the criteria, but does not have a PMCID, we are at fault. It is the job of the primary author to ensure that their manuscript gets assigned a PMCID. Some journals take this step on behalf of the authors (see below for a link to the list of journals), while some do not.

Note that the PubMed Central reference number (PMCID) is different from the PubMed reference number (PMID). PubMed Central is an index of full-text papers, while PubMed is an index of abstracts. The PMCID links to full-text papers in PubMed Central, while the PMID links to abstracts in PubMed. PMIDs have nothing to do with the NIH Public Access Policy.

Here are some links that may be useful:

• The basic rules, explained: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/index.htm
• Which manuscripts does it apply to: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/determine_applicability.htm
• Where to find the PCMID number: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/citation_methods.htm#NIHMSID
• Who should submit the manuscript in PubMed Central: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process.htm
• These journals submit manuscripts to PubMed Central on behalf of the author: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm

In *my* version of EndNote (X4.0.2 for Mac), the PMCID ends up in the "Custom 2" field when you download from PubMed. It's probably different for each version.