skip to main content
ACM Digital Library home
ACM corporate logo
Advanced Search

Author Guidelines

Submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter. See more details in section 5.

Scope

The ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS) publishes previously unpublished high-quality scholarly articles in all areas of information retrieval. Please consult the editorial charter.

Originality

Contributions appearing in ACM journals are normally original papers that have not been published elsewhere. Publication of a paper that has been widely disseminated is permitted only if the Editor judges that the revision contains significant amplification or clarification of the original material or there is some significant additional benefit to be gained. Any prior appearance should be noted on the title page and it is the obligation of the author to inform the Editor-in-Chief if there are any circumstances concerning the contribution that bear on this policy. Submission of a manuscript that is under review by TOIS to another journal or conference without approval of the Editor-in-Chief is considered to be unethical and, when discovered, will result in immediate rejection by TOIS.

TOIS conforms to the ACM Policy on Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submissions, except that TOIS usually defines "substantial revision" to mean that at least 50% the paper is material that has not been published previously. For submissions that are substantial revisions of previously published work that has already appeared in a major peer-reviewed conference, authors must provide a detailed explanation that clearly details the differences between the original submission(s) and the new submission. The following changes are considered to be of a largely cosmetic nature: extended introductions of related work sections, testing of on further datasets that lead to similar conclusions as in the original paper(s). The 50% new material is expected to consist of significant technical enhancements that improve over the original paper(s) or of experimental results on additional datasets with outcomes that are markedly different from the claims published in the original paper(s). TOIS welcomes submissions that draw together multiple initial papers into a coherent synthesis of a substantial line of research.

Paper Length

Research papers do not have a maximum paper length.  However, papers are typically 25-30 pages (excluding references), with a minimum of 20 pages (in the ACM template format). Authors considering papers longer than 40 pages (excluding references) should contact the Editor-in-Chief prior to submission to explain why a longer paper is appropriate for the topic.

Style Guidelines

See http://www.acm.org/publications/submissions for formatting instructions and templates. Numbered section headings should be used to facilitate readability. Language which reflects prejudice (e.g., sexist language) should be avoided. The introduction should clearly describe previous research on related topics. Care should be taken to specify clearly all procedures essential to the research. When a paper concerns a new piece of software, comparisons to similar programs, benchmarks, and a discussion of limitations should be included.

Generic names are preferred to specific product names. However, when they imply essential aspects of a procedure, as when a specific product has unique features, the product names may be included for clarity. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to quote long passages (60 words or more) from any material that appeared in a non-ACM publication.

Title and Abstract

Use a specific and informative title. Typically, a title might contain 6 to 12 words. Avoid special symbols and formulas in titles unless essential to indicate content. Authors' names should be given without titles or degrees, along with the name of the sponsoring organization. Current mailing addresses, including email addresses, should be given in a footnote.

The abstract should be 150 to 200 words long and should consist of short, direct, and complete sentences. The abstract should state the objectives of the work, summarize the results, and give the principal conclusions. It should also indicate whether the focus is on theoretical developments or on practical questions and whether subject matter or method is emphasized. Avoid starting with the words, "This paper". Work planned but not done should not be described in the abstract. Because abstracts are often extracted from a paper and used separately, avoid the use of the first person, display mathematics, and citations.

Aids for Classification

Categories and Subject Descriptors should be selected from the classification system used by Computing Reviews (CR). The latest CR classification was published in 1998. It is available at http://www.acm.org/about/class/1998. Use as many descriptors as applicable.

General Terms are those common to more than one area of computing and are chosen from the fixed list that accompanies the CR classification system.

Additional Keywords and Phrases consist of English language words that may also be useful for indexing. These may be synonymous with terms in the classification system, may be more specific than the subject descriptors, or may not be covered by the existing system at all. In this last case, use specific terms whose meaning is generally accepted in the computing community. Do not use broad, catchall terms (such as "computer," "system", or "automatic") and do not use private terms or acronyms. For additional information, please read, "How to Use the Computing Classification System."

Mathematical and Symbolic Expressions

Short mathematical equations and other expressions in the text should be run in: (instead of each being displayed on a separate line). Avoid exponents having more multiple levels of superscripting? $e sup {x sup 2 + y sup 2}$, use $exp( x sup 2 + y sup 2 )$. Likewise, avoid the use of built-up fractions in the text. For example, instead of 1 over { italic {n}}$, use either $1 / italic {n}$ or the negative exponent form $italic {n} sup -1$. In display matter, however, built-up fractions are preferred for clarity. Likewise, avoid small-type mathematical expressions centered above or below arrows.

If submitting hardcopy from a single-font printer, then indicate special marking for symbols (e.g., italics, boldface) and clearly identify unusual symbols.

Equations that are referred to later in the text should be numbered sequentially and referred to, for instance, as Eq. 1. Do not number equations that are not referred to in the text.

Statistics

For empirical studies, the procedure should be presented in sufficient detail to be replicated by other researchers. Statistical tests should be included to support empirical claims. When reporting statistics, the name of the statistic, the degrees of freedom, the value obtained, and the p-value should be reported, e.g., F(3,65)=4.83, p < 0.01.

Figures

Figures include graphs of results, schematic drawings, samples of output screen dumps, and photographs of special equipment or displays. Each figure should be numbered and have a caption. Upon publication, figures will be reduced to 12.7cm (5 inches) in width. Care should be taken to ensure that the legends and labels within the figure are large enough to be readable after they are reduced. Acceptable figure file formats are .tif, .gif, .jpg, .png, and .eps.

For final submissions on paper, high quality (at least 600 dpi) figures should be included. Color prints can be reproduced, although this adds to production costs and must be approved by the Editor-in-Chief.

Citation Style and Reference Formats

For information on citation styles and reference formats, please read the information found here.  

Submission procedure

Electronic submission should be made through Manuscript Central, ACM's submission management system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tois. If it is your first time submitting a paper using this system, you will need to create a new account (instructions can be found at the website); otherwise, enter your login and password, choose "Transactions on Information Systems" as the journal, and follow the instructions provided for submitting your paper. Re-submission of rejected papers or revisions of rejected papers will not be considered within 6 months of the reject date.

Although not required for submission, we encourage authors to use the ACM LaTeX style files (described on http://www.acm.org/publications/submissions/latex_style ). While there is no specific word limit for TOIS articles, papers tend to be in the 8,000-12,000 word range.

Submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter containing all of the following:

  1. Confirm that the paper is not currently under submission at another journal or conference.

  2. Disclosure of any previous publications by the author(s) that significantly overlap with the submission. In particular, if the submission is an extension of an earlier conference paper, explain the differences between the two papers. Please remember that TOIS requires at least 50% of the article being submitted to be new material (see under 2. Originality).

  3. Confirmation that all authors are aware of the submission and agree to its review by TOIS.

  4. Suggestions of three Associate Editors that seem most suitable to handle the submission. Please select Associate Editors from geographically diverse areas in a different part of the world than you. For example, if you are from Europe, please select Associate Editors from anywhere but Europe.

  5. Disclosure of possible conflicts of interest with the Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors.  If there’s no COI, please declare: “We confirm that there is no COI with the EiC and any AE.”

  6. Please confirm that your coverage of related work is appropriate and up-to-date. Failure to include an up-to-date account of the relevant literature is a frequent ground for delays in the decision-making process and even for rejection. As an author you should ensure that your coverage of relevant work is complete and up-to-date, and includes (1) references to the original publications that introduced key notions that you use in your paper, and (2) relevant work published in recent years at all relevant venues including, but not limited to, ACM TOIS (of course), SIGIR, WSDM, CIKM, WWW.

Submission will be acknowledged, and an Associate Editor will be assigned to process the manuscript; this may or may not be one of the Associate Editors suggested by the authors. Authors are expected to maintain current contact information in the Manuscript Central system.

Reviewing procedure

Please see reviewing information for more details.

Once Accepted

Once a paper is accepted, the corresponding author will be asked to complete an ACM rights management form electronically through the ACM e-Rights Transfer Application. Authors retain liberal rights to material published by ACM. For additional information, please see https://authors.acm.org/author-services/author-rights.

Abstracting of material in ACM publications is permitted with credit to the source. Libraries are permitted to photocopy beyond the limits of U.S. copyright law, for private use of patrons, those articles that carry a code at the bottom of the first page, provided the per-copy fee indicated in the code is paid through the Copyright Clearance Center (P.O. Box 675,Schenectady, NY 12301 USA). Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles for noncommercial classroom use without fee. The complete ACM Copyright Policy may be read here.

The corresponding author will receive either galley or page proofs; these should be checked and returned promptly. Although the ACM staff copyedits manuscripts, the author is solely responsible for marking errors. Substantive changes should be approved by the Editor.

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/.

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]).