Did you publish a peer-reviewed journal article that is applicable under the NIH Public Access Policy in a journal published by Springer? Most Springer journals fall under the Method D form of submission method. Under the Method D form of submission, publishers submit the final peer-reviewed version of a manuscript to the NIHMS on behalf of NIH-funded authors. See the NIH Chart on Submission Methods.

Not sure about the submission status of an NIH-supported work published in a Springer journal? Use the new form that Springer provides for NIH-funded authors to ensure timely submission of the work in order to be compliant with the NIH Public Access Policy. Why is timely submission important? A PMCID is required within three months of publication.

To locate full grant award information, use the NIH Grants Lookup Tool.

* Authors are highly recommended to use the same variation of their name consistently throughout the course of their academic studies and future professional activities. If the name is a common name, consider adding a middle name to distinguish it from other authors. If the name is still a common name, consider changing the name. Consistency enhances retrieval and helps to disambiguate author names in databases. Uniqueness of a name helps establishes a “presence” for an author.

* Authors are highly encouraged to use a standardized version of an affiliation address using no abbreviations.

* If the publication was generated as a result of a specific research study or a group such as an academic program of study, a laboratory or clinic, add the name of the research study or group as a corporate author and use the name consistently. Adding a corporate name for a research study or group enhances retrieval of research output by the given study or group.

* Publish as much as possible. Publication productivity demonstrates willingness to share research findings and helps foster knowledge transfer.

* Present at conferences or other symposia. Conferences are an excellent venue for disseminating new research findings.

* Formulate a concise, well-constructed title and abstract for a work. Include crucial keywords in the abstract. Most databases allow for searching of words noted in a title and an abstract, and secondly, a clear abstract allows users to quickly discern the basis of the work when reviewing a list of results generated by a search query. It is recommended that authors construct an abstract that includes as many specific keywords that summarize the content of the work. What is the work about? Be specific in describing the work to enhance retrieval of the work in databases and search engines. See Writing Your Article: Abstracts by Taylor and Francis.

* Review the publisher copyright form for a manuscript and retain as many rights to the work that to allow for maximum flexibility to re-use the work.

* Consider the desired audience when choosing a journal for publication. Topic-specific journals or journals published by a specialized society may disseminate research results on a topic more efficiently to a desired audience than general science journals, such as Nature or Journal of the American Medical Association. More specialized journals, even with a potentially smaller readership, may offer an author broader dissemination of relevant research results to their peers in their specific field of research.

* Publish “negative” as well as positive research findings. Publication of negative findings leads to further applicability of research and prevents others from duplicating research.

* Publish a manuscript in a journal that is currently indexed by PubMed/MEDLINE. Citations in PubMed/MEDLINE are “crawled” by Google Scholar which can help promote the visibility and accessibility of a work.

* Consider publishing a work in an open access journal. Open access journals allow authors to retain rights to the work that allow for many options for further dissemination of the research.

* Partner with industry for a research project.

* Present preliminary research findings at a meeting or conference and follow-up with a published manuscript, even if the research findings were negative.

* Cultivate a series of academic and professional networks by participating in committees or other related activities. Volunteer for conference-related activities, participate in committees that issue position statements or clinical guidelines, act as a reviewer or Editor-in-Chief for a journal, serve as a mentor, develop relationships with policy-makers on the state or national level, be part of a team for conducting a systematic review, teach a Continuing Education class, serve as a grant application reviewer, participate in responsible conduct of research or curriculum committees affiliated with an academic or institution, serve on Institutional Review Boards or committees for animal studies, and other related activities.

* Many major academic or research institutions have institutional digital repositories that archive the work of authors affiliated with the institution. Some institutional digital repositories allow for creation of specific online communities that showcase the research output of an author or group such as a research study, a department or a center.

* Persuade the organizers of a conference to make publicly available the presentations made at conferences; not just the published abstracts.

* If the work relates to a research study, create a website devoted to the research study and post materials such as peer-reviewed versions of manuscripts of journal publications, conference abstracts, supplemental materials such as images, illustrations, slides, or specimens, progress reports, to name a few. Authors are encouraged to review any copyright forms to confirm that they have the right to post materials on an institutional website. If the right to post a manuscript on an institutional website cannot be obtained, create links to the manuscript from your website using the PMID from a PubMed/MEDLINE citation or persistent URLs/DOIs that link directly to the publisher’s website. If the research study involves work that may be of interest to consumers or potential clinical trial participants, provide information tailored for the layperson.

* If there is a website related to a research study, website developers should utilize SEO (search engine optimization) strategies to enhance retrieval of materials by search engines such as Google. The web developer should confirm that the web page titles describe the content of the website and include the name of the research study. Meta tags that note appropriate keywords should be included in the page header section. Search engines look at this “hidden content” and use this as a basis for search results page rankings.

* Register with CiteULike or Connotea and start a “library” of publications related to a research project or by author and share the research project library with others.

* If a work pertains to potential translational medicine applications, consider including a discussion of how the research could translate into clinical outcomes. This may provide insight for policy-makers as to the potential impact of the research study.

* Start a blog devoted to the research project. Check out ResearchBlogging.org which is a site that allows bloggers to write about peer-reviewed research, but also to share that work with readers and bloggers around the world to learn about cutting-edge research developments.

* Create a podcast describing the research project and submit the podcast to YouTube. Many major academic or research institutions have created their own YouTube channels and provide video services at no charge.

* Issue press releases for significant findings and partner with the institutional media office to deliver findings to local media outlets. Be willing to provide interviews with the media that explain the research study or area of research.

* Conduct outreach visits or provide seminars to other institutions/scientists, policy-makers, practicing physicians, consumers and health care providers to discuss a research study or topic related to current research efforts.

* Collaborate with authors and researchers from other institutions and from other subject areas.

* If the nature of the work is clinical, consider discussing clinical issues that arise with research investigators to help identify possible new areas of research to undertake, or vice versa. Such collaborative efforts help to accelerate translational research efforts.

* Document all forms of research outputs such as journal articles, outreach visits, research data, conference materials, patents, etc. Keeping track of research outputs is crucial to documenting impact of research. See the Assessing the Impact of Research website to learn more about documenting the impact of research.

Is sharing of data good science?

Too Many Researchers are Reluctant to Share Their Data

Do Academic Scientists Share Information with Their Colleagues? Not Necessarily

Special in Nature: Data Sharing

Thought-provoking reading on citing of papers.

Citations: Too Many, or Not Enough? – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Sciences

“Simply put, students, colleagues and coauthors must critically read each paper cited in its entirety. Cite only the best, strongest and most original publications. Cite review articles only if they offer unique perspectives, concepts, or synthesis.”

Interesting article by Elisabeth Pain published in Science Career Magazine: Feeding your Research into the Policy Debate that discusses the pros and cons of scientists sharing research findings with policy-makers. According to Troy Benn,

“The most important lesson that I’ve learned is that scientists do play a role, and it’s a very large role, in … contributing their research to policy deliberations…”

Interesting Nature editorial on measuring individual scientific achievement.

“A poll of Nature’s readers suggests that feelings about metrics are mixed. Many researchers say that, in principle, they welcome the use of quantitative performance metrics because of the potential for clarity and objectivity. Yet they also worry that the hiring, promotion and tenure committees that control their fate will ignore crucial but hard-to-quantify aspects of scientific performance such as mentorship and collaboration building, and instead focus exclusively on a handful of easy-to-measure numbers related mostly to their publication and citation rates.”

“. . . transparency is essential: no matter how earnestly evaluation committees say that they are assessing the full body of a scientist’s work, not being open about the criteria breeds the impression that a fixed number of publications is a strict requirement, that teaching is undervalued and that service to the community is worthless. Such impressions do more than breed discontent — they alter the way that scientists behave. To promote good science, those doors must be opened wide.”

Check out the special Science Metrics section that Nature created to facilitate discussion on metrics for assessing scientific performance.

Check out the new NIH Submission Chart based on the chart created by NIH.

Sage Publishers offers recommendations for authors to increase the visibility of published works using social media outlets, “10 Ways to Increase Usage and Citation of your Published Article Using Social Media.”

eRA Commons has partnered with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in providing a link to My NCBI in Commons. My NCBI includes “My Bibliography,” a tool for users to maintain and manage a list of all of their authored works such as journal articles, manuscripts accepted for publication, books and book chapters.  A new feature now available in My Bibliography facilitates the management of publication compliance with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy. From the new Awards View, eRA Commons users are able to see whether their publications are compliant with the Policy, start the manuscript submission process, associate their NIH extramural awards with their publications, and designate delegates to manage their bibliography via My NCBI.

The partnership between eRA Commons and NCBI allows Commons users to benefit from My Bibliography’s ability to populate citation data from PubMed, PubMed Central, and the NIH Manuscript Submission system (NIHMS), and to readily maintain accurate, structured and up-to-date bibliographic information.

Important Dates:

As of April 2010, linking a Commons account to a new or existing My NCBI account allows references saved in My Bibliography to automatically appear in users’ Commons accounts.

As of July 23, 2010, PD/PIs will be unable to enter citations manually into eRA Commons and must use My NCBI’s “My Bibliography” tool to manage their professional bibliographies.

As of October 22, 2010, Commons will no longer display citations that a PI has manually entered into Commons. All citations previously entered manually into Commons will be removed from the Commons system. Therefore, these citations must be added to My Bibliography so that they will continue to appear in Commons and can be associated with future annual progress reports.

Guidance:

• My NCBI Tool to Replace eRA Commons for Bibliography Management (NIH Notice: NOT-OD-10-103)
• eRA: My NCBI How-to Steps
• Using My Bibliography to Manage Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy (Webcast: 17 minutes)
• My NCBI: Managing Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy Using My Bibliography (Step-by-step guidance including screenshots)

Help?
eRA Commons Help Desk: http://itservicedesk.nih.gov/eRA/ OR Toll-free: 1-866-504-9552

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) recently released the 2009 edition of JCR. JCR 2009 includes citations from more than 1,600 new journals.