From: U.S Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Following the PAMS Broadcast message that was sent in late January 2020 entitled “Requirements for Submission of Final Peer-Reviewed Accepted Manuscripts,” this follow up message is being sent to remind DOE Office of Science (SC) financial assistance recipients of their obligation to submit final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts for published journal articles resulting from SC funding.
Following the January 2020 message, we received feedback about the requirements and have tried to address commonly asked questions here. Frequently asked questions that we received, with answers, are identified below:
Question: When did the requirement to submit final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts take effect for DOE SC financial assistance recipients?
Answer: The requirement to submit final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts was incorporated into DOE SC financial assistance awards as part of the federal reporting checklist (DOE F 4600.2) in early (calendar year) 2015. The requirements were established by the DOE Public Access Plan and are incorporated in the terms and conditions of award.
Question: Do I, as the PI, have an individual responsibility to submit my final peer-reviewed accepted manuscript or is it a responsibility of the institution?
Answer: Recipient institutions are official awardee and are responsible for complying with the terms and conditions of award. That said, any personnel at the recipient institution may submit final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts. The recipient institution is responsible for ensuring that submissions are made, whether they are made by the PI, staff in the Sponsored Research Office, other researchers, or students.
Question: How are submissions made and when do they need to be made?
Submissions of final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts are to be made to the DOE E-Link system (https://www.osti.gov/elink/) and it is expected that recipients will submit final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts once they are accepted for publication, but no later than one-year after the date the journal article is published online, and before closeout. Instructions for submissions may be found at osti.gov. OSTI has also prepared a video tutorial to demonstrate how to submit a manuscript which can be found in this video.
Question: My article is copyrighted. Can I submit an article that is copyrighted?
No. Copyrighted articles are not required for submission, and further, may not be submitted to E-Link. Rather, only final peer-reviewed accepted manuscripts are accepted for submission, and DOE has rights to use the final peer-reviewed version of the manuscript for public access purposes. Please do not submit the copyrighted, published version of the manuscript.
Question: Are duplicate submissions a concern?
No, duplicate submissions are not a concern. When you submit your final peer-review accepted manuscript, and provide the DOI, we will reconcile the submission with any other submissions that have the same DOI. We will account for the award number and sponsoring office that you identified for the submission, and merge that info as part of the metadata for the accepted manuscript record.
Question: Will my final peer-reviewed accepted manuscript be made available to the public as soon as I submit it?
No. After a one-year period, following the published date of the manuscript, the final peer-reviewed accepted manuscript will be made available through DOE PAGES (DOE’s public access search tool) and OSTI.GOV (DOE’s umbrella search tool for all scientific and technical information product types). This one year period serves as an embargo period following the date of publication. As a benefit to the recipient and author of the manuscript, OSTI has agreements with commercial search engines such as Google, where the metadata for the submitted manuscript will be indexed. This maximizes discovery of the submitted manuscript, and can lead to increased visibility and citation of the article.
Question: If I have reported details about the journal article in PAMS, do I still need to submit the final peer-reviewed accepted manuscript to E-Link?
Yes. While product information related to journal articles is reported in PAMS for the RPPR, full-text of the final peer-reviewed manuscript is not required for RPPR purposes. Therefore, the full-text of the manuscript and minimal metadata associated with it, needs to be submitted to E-Link for public access purposes.
For any other questions regarding announcement and submission of your final peer-reviewed accepted manuscript, please contact elink_Helpdesk@osti.gov.
Thank you,
Office of Scientific and Technical Information