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Information and Guidelines for Authors

 

How to Submit

All manuscripts considered for publication in TCPS must be prepared in the PDF format and submitted via the ACM Manuscript Central submission site at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tcps.
 

Manuscript Preparation

Format

TCPS publishes original research papers and survey papers in the ACM Transaction style. Manuscripts should follow the ACM formatting guidelines (Small Standard Format). A 25-page limit is applied to all manuscripts, and those longer than the limit will be rejected without going through the review process. Although it may be appropriate to place some content in supplementary electronic material to accompany the submission, the manuscript should be self-contained. If accepted, the paper, along with the supplementary material, will be made available in the ACM Digital Library.

Prior Conference Publications

TCPS accepts only submissions of original technical contributions. They should not have been published in any publications nor be under consideration by another journal at the time of submission. If a paper has already been published by a refereed conference, TCPS only considers a submission that contains significant additional contributions, compared to the original material. It is imperative that a brief description of the differences, as well as the conference version(s), be attached to this submission for reviewers to identify the new technical materials considered for publication in TCPS. The appropriate designation must be selected for the files during the submission process. Authors should also read the related ACM policies:

Language Services

ACM has partnered with International Science Editing (ISE) to provide language editing services to ACM authors. ISE offers a comprehensive range of services for authors including standard and premium English language editing, as well as illustration and translation services, and also has significant international outreach, especially in China. Editing is available for both Word and LaTeX files. As an ACM author, you will receive a generous discount on ISE editing services.

To take advantage of this partnership, visit http://acm.internationalscienceediting.com/.  (Editing services are at author expense and do not guarantee publication of a manuscript.)

Please note that formatting assistance is provided at no charge to authors by Aptara, as specified on the author style guide page: http://www.acm.org/publications/submissions/.

Review Process

Timetable

TCPS has a commitment to a rapid but thorough review process, while keeping the publications reputation for quality and integrity. Each submission is sent to at least three reviewers. The length of the process varies between papers, depending on the complexity of the material submitted for review. The general workflow of handling a submission is as follows:

    • Admin Checklist: 4 days

    • EIC Assign AE: 14 days

    • AE Select Referees: 7 days

    • AE Invite Referees: 1 day

    • AE Assign Referees: 1 day

    • Reviewer returns review: 45 days

    • AE Recommendation: 14 days

    • EiC Decision: 14 days

    • Minor Revision Resubmission: 30 days

    • Major Revision Resubmission: 90 days

Desk Reject Policy

All refereed articles accepted for publication need to have three qualified reviews. However, TCPS implements (assisted) desk rejects, i.e., rejections based on the judgment of the EiC or an AE that a paper is either out of scope or so far from acceptable as to make external reviews unnecessary. Assisted desk rejects may involve getting one outside review to corroborate an AE's judgement. In summary, soliciting fewer than three reviews is fine for clear reject cases, but not sufficient for articles that are accepted.

Decision Categories

The disposition of each manuscript submitted to TCPS will fall into one of the following four categories:

    • Accept:  An accept decision means that the manuscript is accepted "as is" and with no further changes whatsoever. The manuscript will not be seen again by the editor or the reviewers.

    • Minor revisions: A minor revision means that the AE can reach the final recommendation based on his/her own review of the revised manuscript without consultation of the original reviewers. Minor revisions may be reviewed by only 1 or 2 of the normally required 3 reviewers, or the AE may make the final recommendation based on his/her decision about whether author incorporated the suggested revisions.

    • Major revisions: A major revision means that the revised manuscript should go back to the original reviewers for a second round of reviews. The decision is made when the AE believes that the authors can probably complete the revisions which are too extensive or substantial to fall into the category of "minor revisions".

    • Reject: The manuscript in its present form is not suitable for publication.

Once Accepted

Once a manuscript has been peer-reviewed and accepted, an author must submit the final source files through Manuscript Central. Guidelines for preparing the final version for publication can be found at ACM accepted manuscript preparation guidelines. Note that neither changes to the paper title nor the author list are permitted at this stage.

Page Charges

No page charges are required for publication in TCPS.

Proofreading

A copyedited version of the manuscript will be sent to the contact author for proofreading. The author has one week to approve and return the proof. Another round of corrections may be requested if necessary. Note that post-copyediting changes must be kept to a minimum and can be made only when absolutely necessary.

Supplemental Online-only Material

Please provide a brief description of your supplementary online-only material (i.e., text and multimedia material) to be published in the Digital Library. A short "readme.txt" file will appear in the DL along with your supplementary material describing its content and whatever requirements there are for using it.

Author Gateway

Please be sure to visit the ACM Author Portal for additional important author information.

ORCID Requirements

ACM requires that all accepted journal authors register and provide ACM with valid ORCIDs prior to paper publication. Corresponding authors are responsible for collecting these ORCIDs from co-authors and for providing them to ACM as part of the ACM eRights selection process. For journals using the ScholarOne submission system, the submitting author will be required to provide their own ORCID upon submission. Authors are strongly encouraged, but not required, to include ORCIDs for all authors in their source files.  Please note: ACM only requires you to complete the initial ORCID registration process. However, ACM encourages you to take the additional step to claim ownership of all your published works via the ORCID site.

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission and supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities - ensuring that your work receives proper recognition. This requirement will also enable ACM to provide improvements to the normalization process of ACM Digital Library author profile data, aid in the detection of undeclared conflicts of interest and other publications-related misconduct in ACM Publications, assist with the implementation of ACM Open, and offer a host of other researcher benefits to ACM authors and the scientific community.

Before submission, the corresponding author should register for an ORCID.  Your co-authors should also create their individual ORCIDs at that time and add them to their accounts in the manuscript submission system. Otherwise, you will need to enter them manually into the ACM rights system upon paper acceptance and before publication in the ACM Digital Library. Simple instructions for complying with this mandate are provided inside the ACM eRights system.

ORCID information for all authors will appear on the article’s page in the ACM Digital Library. If ORCIDs are included in an article’s source files, they will also be linked in the published output.

The ACM ORCID FAQ should answer many of your questions.

ACM Policies

ACM Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects

As a published ACM author, you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM's new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects.

ACM Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy

The ACM Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy describes what a COI is, who is responsible for being aware of such conflicts, how to manage COIs, and how to report violations.

ACM Peer Review Policy

ACM recognizes that the quality of a refereed publication rests primarily on the impartial judgment of their volunteer reviewers. Expectations of reviewers and ACM can be found in the Reviewer section of the Policy on Roles and Responsibilities in ACM Publishing page.

Templates

Manuscripts accepted for publication in any ACM publication must be formatted using the ACM authoring template. Submissions must also use the ACM authoring templates. ACM style files will closely approximate the final output, enabling authors to judge the page-length of their published articles.

ACM authoring templates and detailed instructions on formatting can be found at http://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions. For both Word and Latex technical support, contact [email protected].

ACM Computing Classification System (CCS)

If your paper has been accepted, please read the HOW TO CLASSIFY WORKS USING ACM'S COMPUTING CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM for instructions on how to classify your document using the CCS and insert the index terms into your LaTeX or Microsoft Word source file. Providing the proper indexing and retrieval information from the CCS provides the reader with quick content reference, facilitating the search for related literature, as well as searches for your work in ACM's Digital Library and on other online resources.

Author Rights

ACM authors can manage their publication rights in either of the following ways:

  • A license granting ACM non-exclusive permission to publish—allowing authors to self-manage all rights to their work by choosing to pay for perpetual open access from the ACM Digital Library.
  • A publishing license agreement granting ACM exclusive publication rights—by granting ACM the right to serve as the exclusive publisher of a work and to manage ongoing rights and permissions associated with the work, including the right to defend it against improper use by third parties. (This license is roughly the equivalent of ACM’s traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement except that the author continues to hold copyright.)

As of January 2023, per decision of the ACM Publications Board, the traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement option is no longer available for ACM authors.  ACM will continue to defend all ACM-published works against improper use when allegations of publication-related misconduct are brought to light.  For more information please refer to this article in The Blue Diamond.

Additionally, ACM authors may post all versions of their work, with the exception of the final published "Version of Record", to non-commercial repositories such as ArXiv. See the ACM Author Rights page for additional information.

Learn more, including about posting to pre-print servers and institutional repositories, by visiting the ACM Author Rights page.

Open Access

ACM has made a commitment to become a fully sustainable and Plan S compliant Open Access (OA) scholarly publisher within approximately five years. ACM offers a number of ways to achieve this goal, including Hybrid OA, Gold OA, and the ACM OPEN program.

Most ACM journals, with the following exceptions, are Hybrid OA.  ACM Gold OA journals are:

Click here to view the Article Processing Charges (APCs) to publish your article Open Access.

Additionally, all corresponding authors from an institution participating in ACM OPEN will have their research articles published OA at the time of publication at no cost to the authors.  Click here for a list of participating institutions. To ensure eligibility for the program, corresponding authors from participating institutions must use their institutional email address upon submission.

Language Services

ACM has partnered with International Science Editing (ISE) to provide language editing services to ACM authors. ISE offers a comprehensive range of services for authors including standard and premium English language editing, as well as illustration and translation services, and also has significant outreach in China. Editing is available for both Word and LaTeX files. As an ACM author, you will receive a generous discount on ISE editing services. To take advantage of this partnership, visit the Dedicated ACM Editing Service. (Editing services are at author expense and do not guarantee publication of a manuscript.)

Author-izer Service

Once your manuscript is published, this service allows you to generate and post a link on your home page or institutional repository to your published article. This link will let any visitors to your personal bibliography pages download the definitive version of the articles for free from the ACM DL. These downloads will be recorded as part of your DL usage statistics. A detailed description of the service and instructions for its use may be found at the ACM Author-Izer Service page.

LaTeX Collaborative Authoring Tool on Overleaf Platform

ACM has partnered with https://www.overleaf.com/, a free cloud-based, authoring tool, to provide an ACM LaTeX authoring template. Authors can easily invite colleagues to collaborate on their document. Among other features, the platform automatically compiles the document while an author writes, so the author can see what the finished file will look like in real time. Further information can be found at https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions. The ACM LaTeX template on Overleaf platform is available to all ACM authors https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/acm-official#.WOuOk2e1taQ.

Kudos Article Sharing Platform

Kudos is a free service that you can use to promote your work more effectively. After your paper has been accepted and uploaded to the ACM Digital Library, you'll receive an invitation from Kudos to create an account and add a plain-language description. The Kudos “Shareable PDF” allows you to generate a PDF to upload to websites, such as your homepage, institutional repository, preprint services, and social media. This PDF contains a link to the full-text version of your article in the ACM DL, adding to download and citation counts.

Author Gateway

Please be sure to visit the ACM Author Portal for additional important author information.

Contact Us

For further assistance and questions regarding the journal editorial review process and paper assignment to an issue, contact the journal administrator ([email protected]).