Information for authors

Is TWEB the right place to publish your work?

ACM TWEB welcomes original submissions of original, unpublished work which is not under consideration elsewhere. The topic of the paper should fall within the scope of TWEB's charter and topic areas described in the Call for Papers.

ACM journal articles are normally original papers which have not been published elsewhere. Widely disseminated conference proceedings and newsletters are a form of publication, although they may not be archival.

Publication of an enhanced version of a previously published conference paper is possible if the review process determines that (a) the revision contains significant enhancements, amplification or clarification of the original material and (b) there is a significant additional benefit to be gained from journal publication. Any prior appearance of a substantial amount of a submission should be noted in the submission letter and on the title page; a footnote on the first page should indicate that the paper is an extended version of the earlier paper (s). A separate file should describe the differences between the original conference paper and the new submission; this file should be uploaded according to the directions in the Manuscript Central paper submission system. The authors should also upload an electronic version of the earlier publcation (s) according to the directions in Manuscript Central. Authors are encouraged to read the ACM Policy on Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submissions as well as the ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism (including self plagiarism). TWEB forbids authors from submitting papers which would be under consideration simultaneously for publication in both TWEB and another copyrighted forum.

TWEB publishes original research papers. Survey papers will be considered only if they present a new perspective or clearly benefit the field.

Submissions should be well-positioned within the WWW literature, showing how the work reported fits in with existing work. References to relevant papers in the WWW literature should be cited - if there are few of these then the paper may not be relevant for TWEB (see Related work below). Papers should also have a substantial evaluation section.

Formatting and preparing your manuscript

TWEB requires that articles be submitted electronically. While the use of the ACM format is not required for the initial submission, authors are encouraged to use the ACM format to facilitate the conversion that will be necessary upon acceptance.

To ensure proper indexing, classification, retrieval and dissemination, authors must include the following in the manuscript.

Descriptive title
Author names and affiliations
Abstract
Content indicators
Related work
Citations to relevant literature

The following are guidelines for the preparation of this material.

• Descriptive title
• Author names and affiliations
  Authors' names should be given without titles or degrees along with the name and address of the organization for which the work was carried out. The author's current address should be given in a footnote on the first page. Identify the contact author for co-authored work.
• Abstract
  The abstract should be 150 to 200 words and consist of short, direct, and complete sentences. It should be informative enough to serve in some cases as a substitute for reading the paper itself. It should state the objectives of the work, summarize the results, and give the principle conclusions, but omit future plans and citations. Try to avoid starting with the words "This paper ..."
• Content indicators (required once paper is accepted)
  Three types of content indicators must be assigned: (1) categories and subject descriptors, (2) general terms, (3) keywords and phrases. The first two items are selected from the Computing Reviews Classification Scheme most recently revised in 1998. Select as many as are applicable. The keywords and phrases are additional English language words that indicate the content of the submission.
• Related work
  Submissions should cite relevant WWW work, showing how this work is related to prior research. Relevant research can occur in many sources, such as WWW conferences and other SIGWEB conferences, other ACM journals such as TOIT, TOIS and many others.
• Citations to relevant literature
  Citations should be referenced within the text of the paper.

It is always useful to look at the review form that reviewers will complete in reviewing your paper, as it will assist you in preparing your paper.

NOTE: The ACM Digital Library will host ancillary material for a paper on its web site. This material, an online appendix that does not appear in the print journal, is linked to and accessed from the online table of contents. For example, authors could provide hypertext and/or XML versions of their papers, or animations, or any other appropriate technology. Authors that wish to use this option should attach such material as an appendix to their submission and indicate in their cover letter that this material is intended to be ancillary material included in the digital library, and how it is intended to be accessed. All ancillary material should be free from viruses.

Submitting your manuscript

Before submitting a manuscript, please use a spelling checker and correct errors in punctuation, grammar, figure and table numbering, and so forth.

Authors are asked to submit manuscripts in PDF format.

You are welcome to indicate what general area within the TWEB scope you feel is most appropriate for your manuscript.

To submit your papers, please submit them via Manuscript Central, http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/acm/tweb

The Review process

When we receive your manuscript and verify that it can be read and is within the scope of the journal, an Associate Editor will take responsibility for handling the review process. The Associate Editor will assign the article to 3-4 reviewers, study the reviews that are returned, and make an overall recommendation to the Editors-in-Chief.

After you submit your paper via Manuscript Central, you should receive an acknowledgement that the paper has been successfully received and assigned to an Associate Editor within two weeks. You will be given the Associate Editor's email address for any queries on the status of the paper.

If you fail to receive an acknowledgement by 2 weeks after submitting your paper, please contact the editors-in-chief at helen.ashman <at> unisa <dot> edu <dot> au and aruni <AT> us <dot> ibm <dot>.com to verify that the submission has been received.

A manuscript submitted for the first time might be accepted or rejected, but many published articles first receive a "Revise and Resubmit" recommendation. If this happens, it may be very worthwhile to persevere, revising the manuscript to fix problems and clarify misunderstandings. Resubmissions should be accompanied with a cover letter that explains in detail how the comments of the reviewers were dealt with.

Information for Authors of Accepted Papers

1. source file (with bibliography), formatted according to the style file found on the website http://www.acm.org/pubs/submissions/latex_style or http://www.acm.org/pubs/submissions/msword_style

The following Terms should be included:

a) Computing Classification System Terms (http://www.acm.org/class/1998)

b) General Terms, one or more of the fixed 16 terms listed on the above ‘class’ site

c) Additional Keywords and Phrases

2. pdf of the latex file

3. Figure files in .eps or gif or tif or jpg

Also, please download the ACM Copyright Form from http://www.acm.org/pubs/copyright_form.html, complete and sign the form and mail or fax it to (attn: Irma Strolia, fax 212-869-0481).

Irma Strolia
Editorial Assistant Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701
New York, NY 10121-0701
USA