Author Information


Table of Contents


Manuscript Preparation

Authors are required to prepare and submit their manuscripts electronically. This facilitates both a quicker editorial review process as well as facilitating electronic publication of accepted papers.

TOS authors should prepare manuscripts according to the ACM accepted manuscript preparation guidelines. Since these guidelines are in a state of transition with regard to electronic publication, the guidelines here take precedence whenever there is a conflict. We will soon have our own style guides which addresses more of the specific needs for electronic publishing.

Please see Formatting Documents For Electronic Publication below.

To ensure proper indexing, classification, retrieval and dissemination, authors must include the following in the manuscript.

The following serve as guidelines for the preparation of this material.

Descriptive Title

Select a title that accurately and clearly tells what the paper is about. Choose title terms as highly specific as content and emphasis of the paper permit. Avoid special symbols and formulas in titles unless essential to indicate content. Avoid cute or clever titles.

Author Names and Affiliations

Authors' names should be given without titles or degrees along with the name and address of the organization for which the work was carried out. A footnote on the first page should acknowledge funding sources and presentations, if any, of the material at technical meetings (give dates and sponsoring societies). The author's current address should be given in a footnote on the first page.

Abstract

The abstract should be from 150 to 200 words long and consist of short, direct, and complete sentences. It should be informative enough to serve in some cases as a substitute for reading the paper itself. It should state the objectives of the work, summarize the results, and give the principal conclusions. The title need not be repeated. Work planned but not done should not be described in the abstract. Because abstracts are extracted and used separately, do not use the first person, do not display mathematics, and do not use citation reference numbers. Try to avoid starting with the words "This paper ..."

Content Indicators

Three types of content indicators must be assigned: (1) categories and subject descriptors, (2) general terms, (3) keywords and phrases. The first two items are selected from the Computing Reviews Classification Scheme published in the January 1991 issue of Computing Reviews. Select as many of these as may be applicable.

The keywords and phrases are additional English language words that indicate the content of the submission. They should not be synonymous with those already in the classification system : they can be more specific in relation to the paper than the subject descriptors, or they may not be covered by the existing system at all. The following guidelines may be helpful.

Citations

  1. References to items in periodicals: These should take the form: author, title, journal, volume, number, date, pages. For authors, last names are given first, even for multiple authors; likewise for editors, with the name followed by (Ed.). The author's name always ends with a period, either the period which follows his initial, or a period for the purpose. The title has only the first word and proper names (or their derivatives) starting with capital letters, and it ends with a period. The date is given in parentheses. Example:

    3. Jenkins, M. A., and Traub, J. F. Principles for testing zerofinding programs. ACM Trans. Math. Soft. 1, 1 (March 1975), 26-34.

  2. References to reports or proceedings: Author(s) name(s) and title (same style as above), report number, source including date and pages.
  3. References to books: Author(s) -- same style as in periodicals. Title -- all principal words start with a capital letter, and is set in italics. Include publisher, city, and year. Page or chapter references follow the year.
  4. Sequence: In the reference list, entries must be arranged alphabetically according to authors' or editors' names, or publishing organizations for items to which no names can be attached. References are to be numbered in the list, and the numbers are then cited in the text.
  5. Accuracy: Authors are responsible for checking that all information in the references is correct.
  6. Completeness: Include any and all information necessary for finding the work referenced. It is better to include more than enough information than too little information.


Submission for Editorial Review


How to Submit

In order to ensure timely review and facilitate electronic publication, manuscripts must be submitted on the web at
http://acm.manuscriptcentral.com/
Please note, if you don't have an account at ACM Manuscript Central you will need to create an account before you can log in and submit to TOS.

The Editor-in-Chief can also be reached at:

Dr. Sreeranga P. Rajan, Editor-in-Chief
Fujitsu Laboratories of America
1240 E. Arques Ave. M/S 345
Sunnyvale, CA 94085-5401
USA
tel: +1-408-530-4519
fax: +1-408-530-4515
e-mail: sree@fla.fujitsu.com

Each submission must include a PDF or PostScript file for the complete manuscript and an ASCII file containing title, abstract, authors, and contact information for the corresponding author of the manuscript. The files should be named xxxxxxxx.pdf (or .ps) and xxxxxxxx.asc where xxxxxxxx is a 5 to 8 character string from the last name of the corresponding author.

Each submission should indicate whether it is intended as a regular paper, short technical note, or tutorial/survey paper. In the case where the work has already been published by a refereed conference, the submission should note the prior publication on the title page. Please refer to Editorial Charter for the prior publication policy.

Review Process

Details of the review process are currently under revision by the Editorial Board. In general, the process follows the same guidelines as the other ACM Journal publications:

Submitted papers are evaluated by anonymous referees for originality, relevance, and presentation. The author will be notified of the name of an associate editor who will be responsible for the processing of the manuscript, and is expected to keep this editor informed of any change of address. Revisions requested by the associate editor should be returned directly to that editor. After the refereeing process is complete, the area editor makes a recommendation for acceptance or rejection to the Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final decision on publication.


Procedures for Accepted Papers

How to Submit

Authors whose papers are accepted shall use http://acm.manuscriptcentral.com/ for final submission as well. Manuscripts must be submitted as PDF or PostScript.

Copyright and Use Agreement

Authors whose papers are accepted sign a form which either transfers copyright to the ACM or declares that the paper is part of government work. Authors retain liberal rights to material published by the ACM. The following is the standard copyright notice used by ACM journals:

ACM COPYRIGHT NOTICE. Copyright ? YYYY by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Publications Dept., ACM, Inc., fax +1 (212) 869-0481, or permissions@acm.org.

Further details can be found in the ACM Copyright Policy.

Page Charges

At this time, rates and policies for page charges have not been set.


Formatting Documents For Submission & Electronic Publication

Please read and observe the official ACM Copyright Policy, which is part of the the official ACM Publications Plan.

We are currently developing information for authors to prepare their manuscripts so that they will have a consistent and appealing look as PDF or PostScript documents on the server. Guidelines for preparing your paper for publication can be found at ACM accepted manuscript preparation guidelines.

More detailed instructions for electronic publication are being developed, and will be located here. At the very least, it is essential that the ACM copyright be included on the first page of your final document.