From the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, April 2008, by Peter Suber.

The new OA mandate at the NIH will kick in for most grantees next week, on April 7. The threshold condition is not whether a researcher is funded on or after April 7, but whether a researcher has an article based on NIH-funded research accepted for publication on or after April 7. The mandate already applies to NIH employees and researchers in its intramural program.

The policy makes compliance the responsibility of investigators and their institutions. Since it was announced on January 11, universities across the country have been gearing up help their faculty comply. At the same time, individual scholars like Mike Carroll and Kevin Smith, and library associations like ARL and SPARC, have been gearing up to help universities help faculty.

I will leave the implementation advice to the many experts who are compiling it. In this short piece, I'm simply collecting links to their work. For my comments on the policy itself, see SOAN for February 2008. http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/02-02-08.htm#mandates

• First see the many helpful pages from the NIH itself:

The NIH policy home page http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

The text of the new NIH policy http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html

The NIH FAQ on the new policy. The first place to look for implementation advice. http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm

The NIH manuscript submission home page. Don't overlook the links to online help. http://nihms.nih.gov/

The NIH manuscript submission tutorials (slides, video, and PDF) http://nihms.nih.gov/web-help/index.html

The NIH manuscript submission help desk http://nihms.nih.gov/db/sub.cgi?page=email&from=home

The NIH FAQ for the manuscript submission process http://nihms.nih.gov/faq.html

The NIH FAQ for publishers wishing to submit work on behalf of authors http://nihms.nih.gov/publishers.html

The NIH Public Access Communications and Training resources http://publicaccess.nih.gov/communications.htm

• Some of the most useful pages were put together by library associations:

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Guide for Research Universities http://www.arl.org/sc/implement/nih/guide/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/02/guide-to-implementing-nih-public-access.html

ARL-NASULGC webcast: Institutional Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy: Ensuring Deposit Rights http://www.arl.org/sc/implement/nih/webcast/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/03/webcast-on-implementing-nih-policy-now.html

SPARC page on implementing the policy http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/nih/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/02/helping-to-implement-new-nih-policy.html

SPARC Author Rights discussion forum, moderated by Kevin Smith. A good place to ask and answer questions about compliance. http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/08-0205.html http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/02/new-mailing-list-on-author-rights.html

Michael Carroll, Complying with the NIH Public Access Policy - Copyright considerations and options, a white paper from SPARC, Science Commons, and ARL, February 2008. http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/nih/copyright.html http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/02/white-paper-to-help-universities-help.html

Kevin L. Smith, Managing Copyright for NIH Public Access: Strategies to Ensure Compliance, ARL Bimonthly Report, June 2008. A preprint. http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arl-br-258-copyright.pdf http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/03/helping-authors-comply-with-new-nih.html

• Some universities have created their own web sites to help NIH-funded authors.

U of California at Davis http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/Animal_Alternatives/publicaccesscompliance.html

U of California at San Diego http://www.ucsd.edu/portal/site/Libraries/menuitem.346352c02aac0c82b9ba4310d34b01ca/?vgnextoid=e2c2d349f2688110VgnVCM10000064b410acRCRD and http://ocga3.ucsd.edu/ProposalPreparation/Federal/NIH/Grants/ProposalPreparation/NIH-PublicAccessPolicy.htm

U of California at San Francisco http://www.library.ucsf.edu/research/scholcomm/nih.html

Cornell U http://www.library.cornell.edu/scholarlycomm/nihmandate.html

Duke U Medical Center Library http://www.mclibrary.duke.edu/about/news/newsletter.html#nihpolicy

Georgetown U http://www1.georgetown.edu/dml/5803.html

U of Illinois at Chicago http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/ovcr/research/proposals/policies/NIHPublicAccess_Policy.shtml

Indiana U Medical Libraries http://www.medlib.iupui.edu/nihopenaccess/nihopenaccess.html

U of Iowa, Division of Sponsored Programs http://research.uiowa.edu/dsp/main/?get=pubmed&q=&action=

U of Iowa Libraries http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/content.php?pid=6167

Johns Hopkins U http://openaccess.jhmi.edu/nihpolicyfaq.cfm

U of Michigan http://copyright.umich.edu/nih.html

U of Minnesota http://www.lib.umn.edu/scholcom/NIHaccess.phtml

U of Missouri http://library.muhealth.org/resourcesfor/faculty/NIH.htm

MIT http://info-libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/open-access-initiatives/nih-2/

U of North Carolina Population Center http://www.cpc.unc.edu/services/infoserv/library/nihpublicaccess_mandate

U of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library System http://www.hsls.pitt.edu/guides/nihpublicaccess/

Purdue U http://scholarly.lib.purdue.edu/complying-with-the-nih-public-access-policy-mandatory-reporting-requirements/

U of Rochester http://www.urmc.edu/hslt/miner/researchandpublishing/NIHPublicAccessPolicyMinerLibrary.cfm http://www.urmc.edu/hslt/miner/researchandpublishing/PublishersPoliciesonPubMedCentralMinerLibrary.cfm

Rockefeller U http://www.rockefeller.edu/sr-pd/index.php?page=NIH_PublicAccessPolicy

U of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio http://www.library.uthscsa.edu/scholar/nih_policy.cfm

U of Virginia http://www.virginia.edu/sponsoredprograms/NIHPublicAccess_Requirements.htm

Washington U in St. Louis, Becker Medical Library http://becker.wustl.edu/services/scholarly/nihpolicy.html http://becker.wustl.edu/pdf/NIHChart.pdf http://becker.wustl.edu/pdf/NIHComplianceFlowchart.pdf

U of Wisconson - Madison http://library.wisc.edu/scp/nih-policy.html

(For leads to the university pages, thanks to Charles W. Bailey, Jr., Greg Grossmeier, Karla Hahn, Ann Campion Riley, Luke Rosenberger, and Dorothea Salo.)

• Postscript

The NIH held an open meeting on the new policy, March 20, 2008. It solicited comments in advance of the meeting, posted them online, and aired selected comments at the meeting itself.

Open meeting on public access (Bethesda, March 20, 2008) http://publicaccess.nih.gov/agenda20080320meeting.doc

Home page for comments elicited by the meeting http://publicaccess.nih.gov/openmeetingmarch_2008.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/03/nih-comments-online.html

Statement by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni on the comments elicited by the meeting. ("Preliminary analysis indicates over 60% of these pre-meeting comments expressed support of the Policy as implemented, but approximately 15% thought the 12-month delay period was too long and 15% had concerns that a mandatory policy will be detrimental to scientific publishers.") http://www.nih.gov/about/director/03262008statement_publicaccess.htm http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/03/statement-from-nih-director-zerhouni.html

After the meeting, the NIH announced yet another round of public comments on the policy from March 31 to May 31, 2008. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-060.html http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2008/03/call-for-additional-comments-on-nih.html