Managing Compliance with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy

Both NIH investigators and their delegate(s) (optional) will need to login to and use My NCBI to manage NIH compliance for research publications authored by the investigator or arising from their NIH award. See below for general guidance about My NCBI access and use for investigators and delegates:

INVESTIGATORS

• All NIH investigators will have an eRA Commons account and will want to use that account to login to My NCBI if they do not already have a My NCBI account. For details, see the "Scenario 1" instructions in the Create a My NCBI Account section below.
• NIH investigators who have both an eRA Commons account and an existing My NCBI account will need to link these accounts in order to implement NIH compliance management functionality in My NCBI. For details, see the "Linking My NCBI to eRA Commons" section below. To link the 2 accounts, investigators will need to know the username and password for both of these accounts. After the 2 accounts are linked, investigators can log into My NCBI with either their eRA Commons account or their My NCBI account. Logging in with one's eRA Commons account is recommended to reduce the number of accounts used with NIH systems.
  • If you have forgotten your My NCBI username or password, follow the "Forgot NCBI username or password" link on the bottom of the My NCBI sign in page.
  • If you have forgotten your eRA Commons password, follow the "(For external users) Forgot Password/Unlock Account?" link in the top left section of the eRA Commons homepage or contact the eRA Commons Help Desk via link or phone numbers given in the bottom left section of the eRA Commons homepage.
• Assign delegate status if you plan to have someone act as a delegate for you.  See the "Creating a Delegate" section below for details.
  • In order for your delegate to manage your compliance, you will also need to ensure that your My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts are linked. If they are not or if you are uncertain, please see the "Linking My NCBI to eRA Commons" section below.

DELEGATES

• To assist one or more investigators in managing their NIH research publications and/or SciENcv profile, delegates will need to have a My NCBI account. (It is assumed that the majority of delegates do not have eRA Commons accounts.)
  • If you do not have an existing My NCBI account, follow the "Scenario 2" instructions in the Create a My NCBI Account section below.
  • If you have a My NCBI account, but have forgotten your My NCBI username or password, follow the "Forgot NCBI username or password" link on the bottom of the My NCBI sign in page.
  • You can also sign in to My NCBI with your UNC ONYEN using the 3rd party sign in option. Select "See more 3rd party sign in options", then search for and select "University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill" in the 3rd party listing. Once you login with your ONYEN...
    • If you have an existing My NCBI account, you will be given the option to either link that sign in option to the existing account, or to create a new My NCBI account.  Select the linking option to enable future My NCBI login with your ONYEN.
    • If you do not have an existing My NCBI account, the system will generate one and link your ONYEN to it automatically.
• To successfully help manage NIH compliance of an investigator's research publication in My NCBI:
  • The investigator must assign you as a delegate and you must accept that role. See the "Creating a Delegate" and "Accepting Delegate Assignment" sections below.
  • You may need to ensure that the investigator whose bibliography you are managing has linked their My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts.  If this step has not been completed, you will not be able to see the "Awards View" in My NCBI, which will help you to manage their compliance. See the "Linking My NCBI to eRA Commons" section below for instructions on linking these accounts.

Begin by navigating to PubMed and clicking on the "Sign in to NCBI" link on the top right corner of the page.

Scenario 1

If you do not already have a My NCBI account, but you do have an eRA Commons account, click on the eRA Commons Login icon and sign in using your eRA Commons information.  Logging in this way will create your My NCBI account as well as automatically link your My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts and you may skip the next step of linking your My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts. 

Scenario 2  

If you have neither a My NCBI account, nor an eRA Commons account, navigate to the bottom left of the login page click the link to register for an NCBI account.

Once you have your My NCBI account, you will need to link that account to your eRA Commons account. (Note this linking step is completed automatically for investigators who login to My NCBI for the first time with their eRA Commons accounts.)

To link your existing My NCBI account to your eRA Commons account:

1. Log into My NCBI with your existing My NCBI account

2. Once you are in your account, click on your login name at the top right of the page.  On the NCBI Account Settings page, scroll down to the "Linked Accounts" section.

3. Click on the "Change" button to the right of the "Linked Accounts" option (see below)

4. Using the "Login Account Options" scroll down and select "NIH & eRA Commons" and log in to your eRA Commons account

These steps will successfully link your accounts! Once your accounts are linked, the icon  will display within your My Bibliography area and verify that an eRA account has been linked to a My NCBI account.

You are not alone! If you wish, you may set up one or more delegates for your My NCBI account. Delegates are persons who are granted access by NCBI account owners to view and manage their bibliographies (and/or their SciENcv profile). Delegates can add and remove citations, and check whether a manuscript is complaint with the NIH Public Access policy. 

1. Navigate to your NCBI account settings by clicking on your login name at the top right of the page.  On the NCBI Account Settings page, scroll down to the "Delegates" area.

2.  Click the “Add a Delegate” link

3.  Enter the delegate’s e-mail address. Click the “Add a Delegate” button.

4.  Your delegates will receive an email which they must then confirm by clicking on a link in the email.

5. Note: In order for your delegate to manage your compliance, you will need to ensure that your My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts are linked. If they are not or if you are uncertain, please see the "Linking My NCBI to eRA Commons" section in this guide.

1. Sign in to your personal My NCBI account.

2. Respond to the confirmation email from My NCBI by clicking on the URL provided within the email.

3. Click on the "Confirm Connection" button. Under "Collections" area you should see a link for the bibliography for which you are a delegate along with a link to your personal bibliography. Note that these are separate bibliographies.

4. You may need to ensure that the investigator whose bibliography you are managing has linked their My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts.  If this step has not been completed, you will not be able to see the "Awards View" in My NCBI, which will help you to manage their compliance. See the "Linking My NCBI to eRA Commons" section in this guide for instructions on linking these accounts.

1. Make sure you are signed in to My NCBI.

2. Run an author search.

3. Select the citations you want to add to My Bibliography and then click the “Send to” link to expand the drop-down menu. Select the destination “My Bibliography” (a message indicates the number of citations selected to be copied to your bibliography) and click “Add to My Bibliography.”

• Investigators (or anyone) saving your own citations, click the Save button to keep the selected citations in your bibliography.

4. On the resulting page “Save to Bibliography,” your selections will vary depending on whether you are saving your own citations or saving citations for someone else whose bibliography you manage (delegates).

 

• Delegates managing citations for others will need to select the appropriate investigator's bibliography in the drop-down menu under "Other bibliographies that you manage" in order to add items to the investigator's bibliography.

1. Sign in to My NCBI and go to My Bibliography. Click “Manage My Bibliography.”
   
    
2. Click the  button.
    
3. Select the type of publication to be entered manually: journal articles, books/chapters, meeting abstracts, presentations, patents, and non-standard citations. Enter the publication information in the fields provided. All required fields are denoted with a red asterisk. Click “Add Citation” to save this citation in My Bibliography.

My Bibliography has multiple templates with fields pertinent to each type of publication. For example, for patents, inventor and patent number are required fields.

Sign in to My NCBI. You can immediately see your most recent citations in the My Bibliography portlet.

To view all citations available in your bibliography, click on the hyperlinked number of citations (A in the image below) or click “Manage My Bibliography” (B).

The default display in My Bibliography is List view, which has all citations that are included in PubMed hyperlinked. 

Click on each article title to view all information related to a citation in PubMed.  Each citation in My Bibliography that is indexed in PubMed also displays a link to Related Citations, and when available in PubMed Central, a link to Free Full Text and/or a link to Cited in PMC.

In addition, the List view displays a Related PubMed Citations portlet, which presents a brief list of citations recently added to PubMed. Citation retrieval for this portlet is based on the research topics found in the citations stored in My Bibliography. The portlet is updated on a weekly basis.

To view multiple citations at once click the “View” button (A in the image below).

To view your citations without hyperlinks, go to “Display Settings” (B) and select Print.

In the image above there are four buttons which facilitate moving, downloading or suggesting citations.

• To move a citation from My Bibliography to “Other Citations” (a separate bibliography located in Collections), select the citations you wish to move and click the “Move” button (C in the image above).
• To copy citations to a new collection or add them to an existing collection, click the “Copy” button (D).
• To suggest individual citations to others, select the citation(s), click the “Suggest” button (E) and then enter the recipient’s name and e-mail address. Multiple recipients can be added to receive citations using the “Suggest” feature.
• To download citations from My Bibliography, select the citations you wish to download and click the “text file” link (F). On the pop-up confirmation window click OK. The citations will be downloaded in the MEDLINE format.

Note:

• Award view is available through “Display Settings” for eRA Commons users who have linked their My NCBI and eRA Commons accounts.
• When using the “Suggest” feature to send citations to others, the article titles are hyperlinked to lead to the citations in PubMed
• When adding citations manually to My Bibliography, there will be no hyperlink in the citation title unless the citation exists in PubMed. These manually entered citations will continue to be displayed with a pencil icon  for you to edit if necessary