Results of the NIH Plan

["Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>]

I thought it might be interesting to share the American Diabetes
Association's experience with the PMC system for author manuscriupts,
since ADA is fairly unusual in allowing authors to post their accepted
manuscript immediately upon acceptance. Thus, the posting of Diabetes and
Diabetes Care papers on PMC shows how successful the NIH system is absent
any publisher-mandated delay. The success of the system with articles in
our journals goes to the question of whether author failure to comply with
the system can be attributed to publishers, or rather to the resistance of
researchers and universities to comply with the system.

Since the PMC system's debut, Diabetes has accepted 134 original articles,
and Diabetes Care has accepted 122.

In 2004, 39% of Diabetes manuscripts were NIH funded, as were 15% of
Diabetes Care manuscripts. Using those percentages, we would expect that
53 Diabetes manuscripts and 18 Diabetes Care manuscripts were NIH funded
since the start of the PMC system.

To date, one author manuscript from either journal has been posted on PMC.  
Chu K, Tsai MJ. Related Articles, Links Neuronatin, a downstream target of
BETA2/NeuroD1 in the pancreas, is involved in glucose-mediated insulin
secretion. Diabetes. 2005 Apr;54(4):1064-73.  PMID: 15793245 [PubMed -
indexed for MEDLINE]

[Incidentally, it is the wrong version of the manuscript.]

My conclusion is that lack of compliance with the NIH plan is primarily
the responsibility of NIH. I suspect that researchers are not at all
convinced of the value of the system [researchers I know are openly
hostile to it, and see it as yet another bureaucratic burden or little
benefit to them]. It may also be that the manuscript submission system or
the PMC site itself is not perceived as user-friendly.

Peter Banks
Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Alexandria, VA 22311
703/299-2033
FAX 703/683-2890
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org