HSLIC Scholarly Communication Initiative

NIH Policy Guide

Copyright Guidance: How Do I Manage My Copyright?

Good, you have some options.

Option 1:  Add the following NIH-suggested language to your copyright agreement:

Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after publication by Journal.

Beware: This option does not allow you to any other rights to your article, it only allows you to comply with the Policy.  You may not be able to use the published text for teaching or future research or post it on your web site or institutional archive.  If you think this is unfair, learn more about the topic here.

Option 2:  Use a generic authors' rights copyright addendum.  Attach the addendum to your copyright agreement.  Two good addendums are the SPARC Access-Reuse Author Addendum or the Scholars Copyright Addendum Engine provided by Science Commons.  UNM is working to create a standard UNM-approved author addendum.  There will be information on this site when it is ready for use.

Option 3:  You can choose to publish in a journal that allows you to post your manuscript or own your copyright.  Many journals have existing agreements with PubMed Central and will automatically post your manuscript for you.  You can view the copyright policies of thousands of journals in one place on the SHERPA/RoMEO site.  They even list which journals comply with the NIH Policy and other mandated policies.

Option 1 may be the easiest to accomplish in the short term, Option 2 will allow you greater access to your article contents; however, Option 3 will earn you access to your work forever.

If these attempts fail, you cannot comply with the Policy. Learn more.