Publication Guide
ACM - the Association for Computing Machinery - is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society, founded in 1947 and headquartered in New York. For researchers in computer science, ACM is the definitive society publisher: it runs 70+ peer-reviewed journals (including the ACM Transactions series), the Proceedings of the ACM (PACM) series, magazines such as Communications of the ACM, and the proceedings of hundreds of ACM-sponsored conferences - all hosted in the ACM Digital Library.
The biggest recent change: on January 1, 2026, ACM completed its transition to a fully open-access publishing model. Every new ACM article is now published open access, and the Digital Library's back catalog of 800,000+ articles is free to read in the DL Basic edition. This guide covers how to choose an ACM venue, what open access now costs, how peer review works, and how to submit.
Which ACM venue fits your paper?
Computer science is unusual: conference proceedings are archival, prestigious, and often the primary publication venue. Use the table below to pick the right route.
| You're most likely to... | Choose this route |
|---|---|
| Publish a rigorous, journal-length research contribution | ACM Transactions - 40+ subject-specific Transactions titles (TOG, TOCHI, TOSEM, TODS, TOIS, and more), the core of ACM's journal program. |
| Publish a comprehensive literature review | ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) - consistently among the highest-impact venues in computer science. |
| Publish foundational theory | Journal of the ACM (JACM) - ACM's flagship theory journal, published since 1954. |
| Get fast, deadline-driven publication with conference presentation | ACM-sponsored conferences (CHI, SIGGRAPH, KDD, STOC, ICSE, and hundreds more) - archival proceedings in the Digital Library. |
| Publish conference-style work with journal-style review cycles | Proceedings of the ACM (PACM) series - PACMPL, PACMHCI, IMWUT, and others tied to major SIG communities. |
| Reach the broad computing community with an article or opinion piece | Communications of the ACM (CACM) - ACM's flagship magazine, read across research and industry. |
What ACM publishes
- Journals - 70+ peer-reviewed titles spanning every computing sub-field, from theory (JACM) to graphics (TOG), HCI (TOCHI), software engineering (TOSEM), databases (TODS), and information retrieval (TOIS).
- Proceedings of the ACM (PACM) - journal-style venues that publish the papers of major SIG conference communities on rolling deadlines.
- Conference proceedings - the largest part of ACM's output by volume; ACM sponsors hundreds of conferences and workshops each year, and their proceedings are archival.
- Magazines - Communications of the ACM, ACM Queue, interactions, and XRDS.
- ACM Books - a research-monograph series.
Open access and APCs
Since January 1, 2026, ACM is 100% open access. There are two ways to publish:
- ACM Open (institutional model) - if your institution participates, corresponding authors publish OA at no author cost. More than 2,600 institutions worldwide have joined, already covering roughly 76% of ACM conference papers.
- Article processing charges (APCs) - authors at non-participating institutions pay an APC, unless they qualify for a geographic or discretionary waiver.
| Article type | 2026 subsidized APC | List price |
|---|---|---|
| Journal / conference article, ACM or SIG member author | $250 | 1,300 |
| Journal / conference article, no member co-author | $350 | 1,800 |
The 2026 subsidized rates (about 65% off) are temporary and funded by ACM to smooth the transition. For journal articles processed through ACM eRights after January 1, 2027, APCs return to list pricing - always check ACM's current APC list before submission. Green self-archiving remains permitted, and articles are published under CC BY or CC BY-NC licenses at the author's choice.
Peer review process
- Journals: most ACM journals use double-anonymized peer review; check each title's author guidelines for specifics.
- Conferences: program-committee review against fixed submission deadlines, typically double-anonymized at major venues; acceptance rates at flagship conferences are often 15-25%.
- Turnaround: conference decisions follow the published conference timeline; journal first-decision times vary widely by title, so check the journal's page before submitting.
How to submit
- Pick the venue. Decide between a journal, a PACM title, or a conference deadline.
- Read the author guidelines. Each journal and conference publishes its own instructions at authors.acm.org.
- Prepare your manuscript. Use the ACM Primary Article Template (the acmart LaTeX class or Word template) - also available on SciSpace - and cite in the ACM Reference Format.
- Submit. Most ACM journals use ScholarOne Manuscripts (Manuscript Central); conferences use their own systems (commonly HotCRP or EasyChair) linked from the call for papers.
- Complete eRights. After acceptance, the ACM eRights system handles licensing, OA options, and APC or ACM Open processing. An ORCID iD is required.
Ethics and integrity
ACM is a member of COPE and OASPA. Its publications policies cover plagiarism, authorship (including disclosure requirements for generative-AI use), conflicts of interest, and corrections and retractions, backed by the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.
