In its January 11, 2008 Public Access Policy, the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) established deposit requirements to ensure that the public has access to all published material based on NIH research. The mandate applies only to articles that are accepted for publication after April 7, 2008 and that are based on research either wholly or partially funded by the NIH.

2. What is the Wiley-Blackwell policy in response to the NIH mandate?

Wiley-Blackwell supports our authors by posting the accepted version of articles by NIH grant holders to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance by the journal. The accepted version of an article incorporates all changes made during peer review but does not include the publisher's copyediting and stylistic edits, online and print formatting, and bibliographic and other metadata.

Please note: The final version will not be posted by the publisher to PMC. The Public Access Policy calls for the manuscript to be submitted after peer review and acceptance, but before final editing and publication. If you wish to use the final, published version of the manuscript, you must have explicit permission from the publisher. You are welcome to contact the NIH at www.nihms.nih.gov/db/sub.cgi?page=email to request corrections to the version of the manuscript deposited with PMC that affect the scientific accuracy of the manuscript.

To learn more, please go to the full statement of the Wiley-Blackwell policy at NIH_mandate.

3. I am an NIH grant holder, and I am submitting a manuscript. How will Wiley-Blackwell know to post my manuscript on PMC?

We ask authors to identify accurately the sources of their funding in the acknowledgments section of their manuscripts. NIH grants can be listed by grant number, or the authors can simply acknowledge the NIH as a source of funding, depending on the requirements as set out in their grants. Authors who are employees of an NIH branch and who sign the NIH Publishing Agreement will also have their manuscripts deposited. If it is not clearly stated by the author that the NIH or one of its branches has provided research funding for the work reported in the manuscript, we may not know that a manuscript needs to be posted to PMC, and delays in adherence to the NIH mandate may result.

4. Does Wiley-Blackwell deposit all articles deriving from research that the NIH has funded in PMC?

We send all peer-reviewed articles to PMC. This policy does not apply to book reviews, commentaries, editorials, or other material that is not peer-reviewed. For further detail on this topic, see the NIH's own FAQs at publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm#b1.

5. My article has been accepted. What is the next step?

First, all revisions and forms must be received by the journal's editorial office after acceptance of a manuscript. Only a complete submission will be posted to PMC. Wiley-Blackwell will not send an incomplete submission and will wait until the author has returned all parts of the manuscript. If your article has been accepted pending revision or a minor change, the manuscript will not be exported to production and will not be posted until the necessary changes are made. We ask authors to make any changes necessary as soon as possible to avoid any delays.

Once an article is accepted and all forms are received by the editorial office, the editorial office will then export the manuscript to the journal's production editor. In order for a manuscript to be submitted to PMC, the manuscript must be a clean copy, with no reviewer comments, highlighted text, underlines, etc. Once a complete and clean manuscript has been received by the journal's production editor at Wiley-Blackwell, the production editor will then note that this manuscript needs to be posted to PMC and submit the paper, along with graphics, tables, and supplementary material where appropriate, to the PMC processing queue. Posting to PMC will occur within 4-6 weeks of receipt of the manuscript at Wiley-Blackwell.

A sample timeline, assuming a timely response from the author, follows:

A manuscript is accepted by the journal's editor on May 1.
All copyright forms, color forms, conflict of interest forms, and any other required documentation as detailed in the journal's Instructions for Authors are received by the editorial office on May 10.
The editorial office exports all of the manuscript files to the journal's production editor on May 15.
The journal's production editor notes that this manuscript is to be posted on PMC and submits it to the processing queue. The manuscript should be posted on PMC between June 15 and June 30.
Twelve months after the article is published, the peer-reviewed version of the article, without the publisher's copyediting and stylistic edits, online and print formatting, and bibliographic and other metadata, will be made publicly available on PMC.

6. When will I receive my PMCID?

The NIH does not contact authors directly with a PMCID. Authors who wish to find out the PMCID for their manuscript will be directed to the PubMed record, which will include the PMCID.

It is important to note that all manuscripts are assigned a National Institutes of Health Manuscript Identification Number (NIHMSID) when submitted to PMC. This number should be included in the proof that you receive from PMC to review. If you have not received your PMCID, the NIHMSID can be used for inclusion in grant applications and reports.

7. What should I do if my manuscript was supposed to be posted to PMC, but it was not?

First, check with the journal's editorial office to find out when your manuscript was exported to production. If it has been 4-6 weeks since the date given to you by the editorial office, then you should contact the journal's production editor to confirm that the manuscript was sent to PMC. If you don't know how to contact the production editor, you can contact the Wiley-Blackwell customer service team at cs-journals@wiley.com and ask them to forward your inquiry to the production editor.

If the manuscript's acknowledgements section does not list the NIH as a source of funding, there may be delays in getting a manuscript posted to PMC. To avoid such delays, we ask that authors appropriately acknowledge their NIH funding in the acknowledgements section and include the full grant number of the manuscript.

8. The production editor confirmed that my manuscript files were received by PMC, but I still have not received my PMCID. Whom do I contact to obtain this identification number?

The NIH does not contact authors directly with a PMCID. Authors who wish to find out the PMCID for their manuscript will be directed to the PubMed record, which will include the PMCID.

It is important to note that all manuscripts receive a National Institutes of Health Manuscript Identification Number (NIHMSID) when submitted to PMC. This number should be included in the proof that you receive from PMC to review. If you have not received your PMCID, the NIHMSID can be used for inclusion in grant applications and reports.

9. When will I see my manuscript posted on PMC?

All manuscripts have an embargo period of 12 months, which means that the manuscript will not be posted until 12 months after the official date of publication. For journals indexed in PubMed, this date is determined by reference to the indexed version of the article; for journals not indexed in PubMed, the NIH takes responsibility for the research required to determine the publication date. The official publication date may thus be considered the online publication date for some journals and the print publication date for others. For journals indexed by PubMed, articles published first via Wiley-Blackwell's Early View service are submitted to PMC at the time of their electronic publication.

Prior to the lifting of the 12-month embargo, the headings and abstract of the manuscript are available to view on PubMed's AbstractsPlus view. This article information will appear shortly after the article is posted to PMC. The PMCID will be listed at this stage, as will the date at which the twelve-month embargo will be lifted.

If you have questions or concerns about your manuscript after it is posted, please contact www.nihms.nih.gov/db/sub.cgi?page=email.

10. I didn't know that Wiley-Blackwell would post my article, so I sent it to PMC myself. Is there anything I need to do?

If the author of the article and the publisher both submit the same manuscript, the PMC system will recognize the duplication. The version submitted by the publisher is always chosen over the author-submitted version, which will be removed. The author does not need to take any further action.

11. I appropriately noted the NIH as a source of funding in the acknowledgements section of my manuscript when I submitted it several months ago. Why has my article not yet appeared in PMC?

According to the NIH mandate, papers must be sent to PMC on acceptance for publication in the journal, but these articles will not appear online until one year after official publication. In the meantime, you should be receiving communications from PMC regarding the proofs for your article.

12. I know I have to check the proofs for the version of my article to be published in a Wiley-Blackwell journal. Why do I separately have to proof the PMC version of my article?

After converting the accepted manuscript into a PDF, the NIH will convert the content into XML, for further conversion to HTML, to allow for appropriate on-screen rendering. The NIH wants the author to proof the article to ensure that it looks correct on screen and that no errors have been introduced in the conversions to different formats. The NIH requires that it have control over this XML/HTML conversion process; publishers do not participate in this process.

13. Can I change the content of my article when I receive the proofs from PMC?

No. The version that appears on PMC must be faithful to the version that was accepted by the journal. However, you may include reasonable alterations to the text in the proofs that you return to the publisher. These changes will be reflected in the Version of Record, maintained by the publisher.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)

1. What is the agreement between Wiley-Blackwell and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)?

2. How are articles funded by HHMI identified by Wiley-Blackwell?

3. What is the embargo period (i.e., the period of time that will elapse between publication and the article being made publicly available) for articles that fall under the terms of the HHMI agreement?

4. Which embargo takes precedence if an article is authored by HHMI investigators and is also based on research funded by the NIH?

1. What is the agreement between Wiley-Blackwell and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)?

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and Wiley-Blackwell have agreed to make an author's accepted manuscript funded by HHMI publicly available six months following final publication. This policy has been implemented for those articles published after October 1, 2007. Wiley-Blackwell deposits the accepted manuscript version of original research articles on which any HHMI investigator is an author to PubMed Central (PMC). Please note that the accepted version of the article deposited to PMC will not include the publisher's copyediting and stylistic edits, online and print formatting, and bibliographic and other metadata. This arrangement requires nothing of the grantee; identification and deposit are the responsibility of the publisher.

No changes are required to the journal's standard copyright agreement.

For more information and for the terms of the agreement between HHMI and Wiley-Blackwell, please go to Howard_Hughes

2. How are articles funded by HHMI identified by Wiley-Blackwell?

Wiley-Blackwell has assumed responsibility for identifying articles that fall under the terms of our agreement with HHMI. Provided that authors have appropriately identified themselves on their manuscripts as HHMI investigators, no further action is required of them.

The embargo period is six months from online publication.

4. Which embargo takes precedence if an article is authored by HHMI investigators and is also based on research funded by the NIH?

The HHMI 6-month embargo takes precedence as this practice ensures the content is available more rapidly.

Wellcome Trust

1. What is the Wiley-Blackwell policy in response to the requirements of the Wellcome Trust for Wellcome Trust grant holders?

2. My research is funded by the Wellcome Trust, and I am planning to submit my manuscript for consideration for publication to a Wiley-Blackwell journal. At what point should I indicate that I wish to take advantage of the OnlineOpen option?

3. My research is funded by the Wellcome Trust, and I have had an article accepted for publication in a Wiley-Blackwell journal that is not currently included in the OnlineOpen program. What do I do?

1. What is the Wiley-Blackwell policy in response to the requirements of the Wellcome Trust for Wellcome Trust grant holders?

The Wellcome Trust announced in 2006 that all grant holders must deposit their research papers in PubMed Central (PMC). For many of our journals, we offer the OnlineOpen option through Wiley's online platform. If an author publishes an article in a Wiley-Blackwell journal that offers the OnlineOpen option, the author can choose to pay to have the final, published version of the article made freely available to all subscribers and non-subscribers of that journal and to enable the full non-commercial re-use of the article upon publication. This is a one-time payment made by the author and applies only to that article. Articles for which the OnlineOpen fee is paid will also be deposited in PMC and mirrored to the UK version of PubMed Central (UKPMC) in their final published version and with no post-publication embargo.

No changes are required to the journal's standard copyright agreement.

For more information and to view the Wiley-Blackwell policy regarding the Wellcome Trust requirements for grant holders, please go to Wellcome_Trust.

OnlineOpen is available on many-but not all-journals published by Wiley-Blackwell. For a list of Wiley-Blackwell journals that have opted to participate in our OnlineOpen program, please go to authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/onlineopen_order.asp.

If a journal does offer OnlineOpen, it is available only to authors whose articles have been accepted for publication. An author's wish to opt for the OnlineOpen service should be communicated only after acceptance to ensure that this information has no influence on the peer-review and acceptance process. Wiley-Blackwell will deposit the final PDF and XML formats of the article in PubMed Central. The final version of the article includes all changes introduced through peer review, editing, final corrections, online and print formatting, and publication. Payment information for participating journals may be found on the journal's homepage.

3. My research is funded by the Wellcome Trust, and I have had an article accepted for publication in a Wiley-Blackwell journal that is not currently included in the OnlineOpen program. What do I do?

For those journals not included in the OnlineOpen program, Wellcome Trust-funded authors who wish to pay the OnlineOpen fee may still participate. We will be able to accept such a payment to give immediate open access to the published version as defined above and deposit that version in PubMed Central.

In such cases, when the article has been accepted for publication, the author should inform the editorial office about his or her intention to make this payment. Please note that no article will be made OnlineOpen until payment has been received by Wiley-Blackwell.

OnlineOpen

1. What is Wiley-Blackwell's OnlineOpen service?

Journals can opt to participate in Wiley-Blackwell's OnlineOpen service, which allows authors to make their articles freely available on Wiley-Blackwell's online platform upon publication for a fee (see authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/onlineopen.asp for further details). In addition to publication online via our platform, authors of OnlineOpen articles are permitted to post the final, published PDF of their article on a website, institutional repository, or other free public server immediately on publication. The article may also be re-used for non-commercial purposes. This service is offered only at the point when an article is accepted in order to ensure that the OnlineOpen option has no influence on the peer-review and acceptance process. OnlineOpen is available on many-but not all-journals published by Wiley-Blackwell. For a list of Wiley-Blackwell journals that have opted to participate in our OnlineOpen program, please go to authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/onlineopen_order.asp. For a full list of OnlineOpen terms and conditions, see OnlineOpen_Terms.

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Guidelines by Journal

If you are interested in submitting a manuscript, view the author guidelines for each journal by selecting the journal title below (the guidelines will appear in a new browser window):