Learn more about Open October, and updates on the 2024 NIH Policy and My Bibliography.
Join us for Open October 2025
Open October 2025 is a series of events sponsored by WashU Medicine Becker Medical Library and WashU Libraries highlighting trends in open science, open data and open access.
Sessions:
- ORCID iD: What it is and How to Use it
Monday, October 13 2025 | 11 – 11:45 a.m. | Virtual
- SciComm Journal Club: Generative AI in Science Communication
Wednesday October 15, 2025 | 3 – 4 p.m. | In-person: Room 405, Becker Library
- The Updated 2024 NIH Public Access Policy for Publications
Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025 | 12 – 12:45 p.m.| Virtual
- Making Teaching & Research Public with Pressbooks
Friday, Oct. 31, 2025 | 12 – 1 p.m.| Hybrid (Virtual and In-person): Room 142, Olin Library, Danforth Campus
To learn more about each session and to register, see Open October 2025.
2024 NIH Public Access Policy for Publications Updates
- The WashU Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research recently issued new guidance, Public Access, on the Government Use License for authors.
Under the updated Policy, Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) accepted for publication in a journal on or after July 1, 2025, must be submitted to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance for publication and be made publicly available without an embargo upon the official date of publication.
Submitting the AAM to PMC does not require payment to the publisher or publishing open access. Federal agencies have, by law, certain rights to products resulting from federal funding under the “Government Use License” (or “Federal Purpose License). The license provides the necessary permissions for NIH to legally make federally funded AAMs publicly available through PMC without embargo upon the official date of publication, contrary to any publisher assertion or requirement to publish open access.
- A new library guide for the 2024 NIH Policy is now available. The library guide includes a listing of publishers that are zero-embargo friendly for authors who are required to comply with the 2024 Policy. We welcome feedback on zero-embargo publishers—if you know of a zero-embargo friendly publisher that is not on the list, please let us know.
My Bibliography Updates
There are new changes in NCBI My Bibliography in response to the Updated 2024 NIH Public Access Policy which is effective for peer reviewed journal articles accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025. The Updated 2024 NIH Policy requires that NIH-funded articles accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025 be freely available in PubMed Central (PMC) upon the official date of publication (zero embargo).
Authors or Delegates may have noticed that some citations in a My Bibliography are noted as non-compliant even with a PMCID or an NIHMSID. My Bibliography has been updated to note the date of acceptance for citations as part of the managing compliance tools in My Bibliography. To learn more about the changes, see: Updates to Offerings in Support of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy.
As of October 1, 2025, My Bibliography will begin using the earliest publication date listed in PubMed records (whether print or electronic) in support of implementation of the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy update, which defines the Official Date of Publication as: “The date on which the Final Published Article is first made available in final, edited form, whether in print or electronic (i.e., online) format.” To learn more about this change, see: Upcoming Change in My Bibliography.
Readings:
Buck S. Metascience at the NIH. The Good Science Project. August 5, 2025.
Marcum CS. Capping ACPs May Backfire on NIH. Upstream. July 22, 2025.
Tang G, Cai H. Citation Contamination by Paper Mill Articles in Systematic Reviews of the Life Sciences. JAMA Netw Open. 2025 Jun 2;8(6):e2515160. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.15160.
Perlis RH, Christakis DA, Bressler NM, et al. Artificial Intelligence in Peer Review. JAMA. August 28, 2025. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.15827.
Baethge C, Jergas H. Systematic review and meta-analysis of quotation inaccuracy in medicine. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2025 Jul 23;10(1):13. doi: 10.1186/s41073-025-00173-z.
Naddaf M. AI tool detects LLM-generated text in research papers and peer reviews. Nature News. September 11, 2025.
Naddaf M. Journals infiltrated with ‘copycat’ papers that can be written by AI. Nature News. September 23, 2025.