Information for Authors
Information for AuthorsThe ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology is a publication for original and significant results in all areas of software engineering research. The software systems of interest for this journal are characterised in most cases by a scale requiring development by teams, not individuals. They should be sufficiently complex and long-lived to justify investment in languages, methods, and tools that support specification, design, implementation, validation, documentation, maintenance, reengineering, and other related activities. Submitted papers should address important research topics; the results described must be reproducible, extensible, scalable, and have practical relevance.
Experience reports on the use of advanced software engineering techniques are also welcome. To be publishable, however, they must provide thoughtful insights about the development world or the application of a technology, that result in the identification of new important challenges for software engineering research.
The scope of TOSEM includes models, languages, methods, mechanisms, and tools for the elaboration, evaluation, and evolution of products and processes all along the software lifecycle, from requirements specification to software maintenance. Formal and experimental approaches are both in the scope of TOSEM. Examples of topics include:
Papers submitted are judged primarily on originality, significance, technical soundness and quality of presentation. Contributions should conform to generally accepted practices for scientific papers with respect to organisation, clarity and style.
Theoretical or methodological papers should clearly show how the results presented may contribute to software engineering practice. Papers on specific systems should concentrate on technical and architectural issues rather than providing feature-by-feature descriptions. Experimental papers should describe the experimental method used and interpret the results in terms of practice. All papers should clearly indicate what is new and significant about the work presented and how it compares with related work. Every claim must be substantiated through detailed arguments. Technical precision and conciseness are other important requirements.
It is the ACM policy to be the sole, original publisher of articles. Manuscripts that have been submitted simultaneously to other magazines, journals or to conferences, symposia, or workshops without the prior written consent of the Editor-in-Chief will be rejected outright and will not be reconsidered. Widely disseminated conference proceedings and newsletters are a form of publication, although they are usually only semi-archival and often not fully refereed. Publication of expanded versions of papers that have been disseminated via proceedings or newsletters is permitted only if the Editor-in-Chief judges that (a) the revision contains significant amplification or clarification of the original material or (b) there is a significant additional benefit to be gained from journal publication. In either case, any prior appearance should be noted on the title page of the paper. The differences between the submission and the original version should be made explicit both in the submission letter and in the paper. A conference chairperson can arrange with the Editor-in-Chief to publish selected papers from conferences, symposia, and workshops, after suitable reviewing. The papers must meet the editorial requirements for research articles. Acknowledgement of the originating conference will appear as a credit when the paper is published in TOSEM.
Extremely long submissions -- as a general rule, those that exceed approximately 11,000 words -- may be returned without review at the discretion of the editor-in-chief. If placed into the review process, such submissions are not guaranteed review or publication in a timely fashion.
Submissions are electronic and follow ACM guidelines.
Manuscripts intended for publication should be submitted by uploading an electronic version to http://acm.manuscriptcentral.com. Submission requires that the lead author creates an account with his/her full contact information and a statement that the material contained in the submitted paper has not been previously published and is not currently considered for publication elsewhere. If the submission is an expanded version of a conference or workshop paper the lead author should identify the conference or workshop and specify the differences between the submission and the conference version.
Papers will be refereed in the manner customary with scientific journals before being accepted for publication. The overall process is roughly as follows. (In the sequel the acronyms EIC and AE stand for Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor, respectively.)
Steps (1)-(9) are carried out over the Internet whenever possible.
Authors are expected to keep the Editor-in-Chief informed of any change of address. Correspondence on editorial matters should be addressed to tosem at cs dot washington dot edu. Correspondence regarding accepted papers should be addressed to Jono Hardjowirogo (with a copy to tosem at cs dot washington dot edu), or on paper to:
Managing Editor, TOSEM, ACM, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036with a copy to the Editor-in-Chief.
Letters and notes of detailed technical content are considered for publication as Technical Correspondence. They are formally reviewed but are usually not refereed in the same way as short contributions or full articles.
If an author has concerns about how her or his paper was handled, that author should bring those concerns to the EIC. If the author feels that the concerns are not adequately addressed by the EIC, she or he may appeal to the Chair of the Publications Board, in accordance with ACM policy.
Once a manuscript is accepted, a final version must be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief for transmission to ACM for publication. Although this may be done on paper, electronic submission is again highly encouraged. ACM provides for a wide variety of formats for such electronic submissions. Please contact Jono Hardjowirogo for further details or refer to ACM's Guidelines for Submitting Accepted Articles for details.
Copyright. Authors who submit a paper will be sent a sample ACM copyright form for review. If the paper is acceptable after refereeing, each author will be asked to sign an actual ACM copyright form, either transferring copyright to ACM or declaring that the paper is part of government work. The return of the signed ACM form completes the acceptance process. Authors retain liberal rights to material published by ACM. Further information may be found in the ACM Interim Copyright Policies.
Use Agreement. Abstracting of material in ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 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 in this volume 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.Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles for non-commercial classroom use without fee. For other copying, reprint, or republication permission, write to:
Director of Publications, ACM, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036 USA.All rights reserved.
Authors' institutions or corporations are requested to honour a page charge of $60.00 per printed page or part thereof to help defray the cost of publication. Page charges apply to all contributed papers, articles, algorithms, etc. Fifty reprints of each item are furnished free of charge. Payment of page charges is not a condition of publication; editorial acceptance of a paper is unaffected by payment or nonpayment.
Last modified: Fri Apr 20 17:59:49 EDT 2007