Submission Guidelines

Initial submission
Paper format
  • The ICS conference follows the standard ACM conference proceedings template. Authors may use the templates available in LaTeX, Microsoft Word, or Overleaf, available from the ACM proceedings templates page. For LaTeX users, set the document class to \documentclass[sigconf]{acmart}. Submissions that modify the official ACM conference template in any way will be desk-rejected.
  • Papers must be submitted in printable PDF format and contain a maximum of 11 pages of single-spaced, two-column text plus unlimited references. No appendices are allowed.
Paper and abstract submission site
  • This year's ICS will have a single submission cycle.
  • Submission link: TBD.
Anonymity

Submissions, both abstracts and papers, should be prepared for double-blind review without author names or other identifying material. The submission system requests author information, but this information will not be given to reviewers. Authors should refer to themselves in the third person when citing their own work. Authors must not reveal their identity or affiliation through side channels, including the metadata of the submitted PDF files, their prior work, or acronyms of systems already released publicly.

If improving upon prior work, refer to it in the third person and include a full citation. Do not omit or anonymize references for blind review. For example: "While the authors of [the prior work] did X, Y, and Z, this paper additionally does W." The only exceptions for prior work are described in the sections on arXiv submissions and concurrent submissions and workshops.

Authors with questions about anonymity should contact only the Program Co-Chairs regarding submitted papers during and after review. Contacting PC or ERC members about submitted papers is an ethical violation and grounds for immediate rejection.

Declaring authors

All authors of the paper must be declared upfront. Adding or removing authors after acceptance is not allowed because it potentially undermines the goal of eliminating conflicts for reviewer assignment.

AI usage in manuscript preparation

Authors must adhere to the ACM guidelines regarding the use and disclosure of content generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Areas and topics

Authors should indicate the specific topics covered by the paper on the submission page. If unsure whether a paper falls within the scope of the conference, please check with the Program Co-Chairs. ICS is a broad, multidisciplinary conference and encourages new topics.

Declaring conflicts of interest

Authors must register all conflicts on the paper submission site. Conflicts are needed to ensure appropriate reviewer assignment. A paper may be rejected if it has an undeclared conflict that causes a problem or false conflicts declared to abuse or game the review system.

Declare a conflict of interest for any author with:

  • Advisors and advisees, forever.
  • Family members, forever, if they might be potential reviewers.
  • People with whom the author has collaborated in the last four years. This includes a joint research or development project, a joint paper, or a pending or awarded joint proposal.
  • People who were at the same institution in the last four years, or where one is actively engaged in employment discussions with the other person's institution.
  • A direct funding relationship between an author and the potential reviewer, such as a reviewer sponsoring an author's research on behalf of a company or vice versa.
  • Leadership of research structures supported by an umbrella funding award and other members under that umbrella award when the relationship involves funding decisions or representing members' work before the funding agency.
  • PIs of research structures supported under the same umbrella funding award when they regularly participate in non-public meetings and are exposed to unpublished work there.
  • People whose relationship prevents the reviewer from being objective in the assessment.

Graduate students are not presumed to have an automatic conflict with their undergraduate institution. Students who have completed internships are not presumed to retain an automatic conflict with that company. Prospective graduate students do have a conflict with institutions to which they have applied when actively discussing matters with faculty there. The collaboration conflict above still applies in all cases.

Service collaborations, such as co-authoring a report for a professional organization, serving on a program committee, or co-presenting tutorials, do not themselves create a conflict. Co-authoring a paper that is a compendium of projects with no true collaboration among them does not create a conflict between those authors. Other genuine ongoing conflicts should be reported, but authors should be reasonable. Similar research topics alone do not create a conflict. The Program Co-Chairs may contact co-authors to clarify an unclear conflict.

Most reviews will be solicited among PC members, but other community members may also review. Declare all conflicts, not only those involving the PC. When in doubt, contact the Program Co-Chairs.

arXiv submissions

Authors may submit work to ICS 2027 even if it has been submitted to or currently appears on arXiv. However, arXiv submissions can create serious issues for double-blind review. Authors should reduce the possibility of their names being disclosed and should reduce similarity to arXiv submissions where possible.

Concurrent submissions and workshops

By submitting a manuscript to ICS 2027, authors guarantee that it has not been previously published or accepted in substantially similar form in any conference, journal, or archived workshop proceedings. They also guarantee that no paper with significant overlap will be under review elsewhere during the review period. Violation of these conditions will lead to rejection.

Exceptions are the authors' own papers in workshops without archived proceedings, or venues such as IEEE CAL or arXiv with an explicit policy allowing longer conference submissions. In these cases, information must be provided on the submission form so the Program Co-Chairs can make it available to reviewers when needed. The ACM Plagiarism Policy also covers misrepresentation of other works or one's own work.

Ethical obligations
  • Authors must not contact reviewers or PC members to encourage or solicit bids on a paper.
  • Authors must not attempt to sway a reviewer to review a paper positively or negatively.
  • Authors must not contact reviewers or PC members requesting information about the review process or submitted papers.
  • Authors must not contact reviewers or PC members to ask about paper outcomes.
  • Authors must abide by the ACM ethics policy. Violations may result in rejection and possible action by ACM.
  • Authors must not advertise submissions or related technical reports on social media, community blogs, or web pages from the submission deadline until ICS acceptance results are public.
  • ICS follows the ACM Policy on Authorship.
Upon acceptance of your paper

Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection on the Decision Notification Date. Contact authors of accepted papers will receive instructions for preparing and submitting a final version by the Camera-Ready Deadline.

Authors take note: The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks before the first day of the conference and may affect deadlines for patent filings related to published work.

Open Access and publication for 2027 ACM conferences

All ACM publications, including ACM-sponsored conferences, are 100% Open Access. Authors have two primary options: the ACM Open institutional model or payment of Article Processing Charges (APCs). With approximately 3,000 institutions participating in ACM Open, most ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs.

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. Consult the list of participating institutions and the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Waivers are rare and granted only under ACM's specific criteria.

To support the transition to ACM's Open Access model, subsidized APC rates for calendar year 2027 are:

  • $500 APC for ACM/SIG members.
  • $750 for non-members.

This is a 29% discount off current APC list pricing, funded directly by ACM, and applies to conferences scheduled for 2027.

Your paper at the conference

Authors are required to present their work in a scheduled session with other ICS papers. Papers that are not presented in person may be removed from the ACM Digital Library.

For authors who may require a visa to enter the United States

Authors who may require visas should apply early, such as at submission time. If a visa is not received in time, authors may be required to provide proof of a pending or rejected application. More details will be provided as available.

ACM's publications policies
Notice

Papers accepted for this conference will be published in the ACM proceedings.

  • By submitting an article to an ACM publication, authors acknowledge that they and their co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM's policy on research involving human participants and subjects. Alleged violations may be investigated by ACM and may result in full retraction and other penalties.
  • Authors should consider ACM's move to full Open Access publishing and the discounts provided on mandatory page charges for ACM conferences in 2027.
Acknowledgments

Elements in this document were adapted from those of previous ICS conferences. We thank the previous ICS Program Co-Chairs for their contributions.