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For Publishers
 How to Join PMC
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How to Join PMC
This page describes the process for adding a journal to PubMed Central (PMC) and explains what is required of participating journals. Interested publishers should also read the PubMed Central FAQs and the Deposit and Access Policies. Note that PMC currently focuses on archiving English-language journals. However, NLM recognizes the need to include other languages in the archive and intends to do so gradually. For more information, see the FAQ on PMC support for languages other than English.
Participation in PubMed Central is open to any life sciences journal that meets NLM's standards for the archive. A journal must qualify on two levels: the scientific quality of the publication and the technical quality of its digital files. A journal will not make it into PMC if it fails either of these tests.
Scientific Quality Standards for PMC Journals
A journal meets the scientific quality standard if it satisfies either of the following conditions:
- It has been selected for the NLM collection by NLM’s Selection and Acquisitions section.
- The journal publisher already has other journals in MEDLINE® or PMC and:
- the new journal is covered by a major abstracting and indexing service such as Agricola, Biosis, CINAHL, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE, PsycINFO or Science Citation Index, or
- at least three members of its editorial board are principal investigators on active research grants from NIH or equivalent major funding agencies in the U.S. or abroad.
A journal that does not meet these conditions may apply to be indexed in MEDLINE. If it is approved for MEDLINE, it will meet the scientific quality standard for PMC.
Confirmation Letters From Journal Editors
For case 2b above, PMC needs brief letters from the three qualifying editors. Each letter should confirm the writer's editorial role on the journal and list his or her current research grants from major funding agencies. Grant descriptions must include grant number, grant title, amount, duration, and funding agency name. For each grant, provide a link to the grant summary on the funding agency's website, if one exists. Otherwise, include similar, brief documentation that confirms the grant award. If a funding agency's name does not clearly identify it as a national scientific agency, please include a sentence about the agency's function. The letters may be included with the journal application or sent separately via email to pmc@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
Technical Requirements for PMC Journals
Required Files
A journal must provide PubMed Central the full text of articles in an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) or SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) format that conforms to an acceptable journal article DTD (Document Type Definition). PMC does not accept articles in HTML format.
The original high-resolution, digital image files must also be provided for all figures. A PDF, if one exists, should be submitted in addition to the XML/SGML version (but not as the only form) of an article. Supplementary material, in the form of video, audio or data files that may be available with an article, should also be submitted.
NLM has a Journal Publishing XML DTD that any journal may use to submit its data. PMC will also accept data in other full-text article DTDs that are widely used in life sciences journal publishing.
See the PMC File Submission Specifications for details about required data elements and file formats as well as instructions for naming, packaging and delivering files to PMC.
Evaluation of Sample Files
Before accepting a journal into PMC, NLM must be sure that the journal can routinely supply files of sufficient quality to generate complete and accurate articles online, without the need for human action to correct errors or omissions in the data. For this evaluation, the journal must provide PMC all applicable files for a representative set of articles and issues.
A typical sample set for a journal that has been in existence for more than a few years is 3 issues or approximately 50 articles. Smaller samples are acceptable for relatively new or small journals. In all cases, the sample must be representative of the variety of publications styles and file formats found in the journal. Among the variations that should be represented are special issues or supplements, articles or other items that deviate from the typical style and structure of an article, and changes in publication style or format that have occurred over time.
The sample set should include:
- A separate XML/SGML data file for the full text of each article or other published item.
- The original high-resolution, digital image files for all figures in an article, as well as for tables and equations that are constructed as images and are not encoded in the XML/SGML.
- A PDF, if available, for each article.
- Any supplementary data files (e.g., spreadsheets or video files) that are available for an article.
In certain cases, PMC may also ask for a copy of the applicable DTD, with documentation.
PMC will check the sample data to ensure that:
- all required files have been supplied and are correctly named
- the XML/SGML parses correctly according to the DTD
- the online presentation of an article, as generated from the XML/SGML and associated image files, is an accurate and complete rendering of the article.
This last check is made against the print or PDF version of an article or, in cases where content is only available online, against the copy of the article at the journal's own site.
The publisher is expected to correct any errors found during the evaluation and repeat the evaluation process before proceeding to the next step.
Prerequisites for Newly Created Journals
In the case of a journal that has just begun publishing or has not yet published any articles, please note the following:
- The journal must have a properly registered ISSN before making any kind of application to PMC. This means that there must be a record for the journal in the official Register of the ISSN International Centre.
- The journal must have published at least five (5) articles before applying to PMC.
- At least 10 articles from the journal must pass PMC's evaluation of sample files before the journal will actually appear on the PMC site. In other words, a publisher may apply to PMC and begin the file evaluation process with five articles, but must provide at least 10 articles before the evaluation is completed.
NLM may relax these minimum article thresholds, at its discretion, in cases where a publisher has a consistent history of making problem-free deposits for many other journals in PMC.
The PMC Application Process
To start, the journal publisher should send an email to pmc@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov indicating what content you wish to include in PMC. Include the full name and ISSN for each journal and, for journals that are online, a URL for the journal site.
PMC staff may ask for additional information, such as letters of support from a journal's editors, if necessary. After a brief review, PMC will inform the publisher whether or not the journal meets PMC's scientific quality standards.
For journals that meet the scientific quality standards, the process will continue as follows:
- The publisher sends PMC a representative set of files for evaluation.
- If PMC finds problems in the sample set, it sends back a report specifying what needs to be corrected. The publisher corrects the problems and resubmits the sample for evaluation. If, on the third submission, there are still problems, the journal's application will be rejected.
- On successful completion of the file evaluation, the publisher and NLM complete a formal PubMed Central Participation Agreement.
- The publisher sends PMC a complete set of files for all issues up to the present that are to be included in the archive. Prior to sending these files, the publisher is expected to correct any problems that might exist similar to what were found in the evaluation stage. If the journal is going to be providing files for a large number of back years, PMC may ask for them to be delivered in installments, usually a year at a time.
- Using the (first installment of) files provided by the publisher, PMC sets up the journal on a preview site for the publisher to review. PMC corrects any problems on its end that are found in this review.
- The journal is released to the PMC public site as soon as the publisher approves the preview. Remaining installments of back issues, if any, will be released publicly as they are processed.
A journal that has a large run of print volumes preceding what it has available online is eligible to participate in NLM's Back Issue Digitization project. However, NLM will not begin digitizing back issues until the journal has established that it can provide current content that meets PMC's standards.
Journal Setup Requirements
The PubMed Central online presentation style allows a journal to maintain a distinct identity, but it also provides consistency of appearance and functionality across all of PubMed Central, for the benefit of users.
The journal identity is set by the journal banner at the top of each page and a journal 'watermark' stripe running the length of each page. The journal banner is also used to provide a link (or links) back to the journal's own site. Within the general PMC template, a journal may choose from a number of styles for presenting elements such as references, section headings and certain parts of the article front matter.
See the PMC Journal Setup Requirements for details. Do NOT send in any setup information until PMC asks you to do so.
PMC Participation Agreements
Before a journal is publicly released in PMC, the publisher must complete a formal PubMed Central Participation Agreement with NLM. The standard PMC Participation agreement is available here in Microsoft Word format.
Variations of the standard agreement are available for special deposit cases. The PMC Selective Deposit agreement is for publishers who deposit only those articles that fall under certain funding agencies' access policies or the publisher's own open access program. The PMC NIH Portfolio agreement is for a publisher who chooses to deposit only those articles that fall within the purview of NIH's Public Access Policy. It is just a more specific version of the Selective Deposit agreement.
Submitting Citations to PubMed and CrossRef
If a publisher wishes, PMC will submit citations to PubMed and/or CrossRef on behalf of a journal. In either case, a citation will be sent automatically on the day that an article becomes available on the PMC web site. Citations usually appear in PubMed the day after they are submitted. For CrossRef, the publisher must have a CrossRef account that PMC can use for submission. PMC does not have its own CrossRef account.
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