Preparation Instructions for WCOP'13 Papers
4/02/13 @ 11:35 AM EDT

This web page will acquaint you with the formatting and submission instructions for all aspects of the related files needed for your final version (Paper and/or Abstract), to the conference publications and the ACM Digital Library, the required fields, and how and when to complete the appropriate ACM on-line forms. As well as the optional thumbnail image. All submission documents must comply with ACM SIG Templates and Formats. NOTE: The chairs want the authors to use the standard ACM SIG 9 pt. body text size templates as posted in all the instructions below.

Click here if you are submitting a Keynote Talk Abstract to be directed to your specific preparation instructions.

Please read the whole page before beginning the final submission process.

1. Submission Deadline & Page Limits
Your page limit is set by the category your submission has been selected for:

Submission Deadline: April 17th
Short Paper = 6 Page Limit
   

2. Preparation Requirements, Recommendations, & the Required ACM SIG Templates to be Used to Prepare Your Final Version


     Microsoft Word Instructions
(a)
Read through the ACM copyright and permissions policy to make yourself aware of any conflicts, expectations, releases, and 3rd party material information that will be needed to include certain figures, images, or other material in your submission:
ACM Copyright & Permissions Policy
and
ACM's requirements about 3rd party material
*NOTE: The ACM eform assigned to your paper should be completed within 48-72 hours after receipt. The ACM eform only takes a few moments to complete.

(b)

 

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Please download the sample/template word document from ACM: http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html
We strongly encourage you to review the sample file above so you will be aware of the mandatory sections, copyright strip information (see step c), formatting requirements, font requirements, font sizes, and spacing required for the your final version.

(c) The correct WCOP'13 copyright-permission notice needs to be inserted in the sample files above, see page 1, bottom of column 1 before you submit your final version. Click here to open or download the WCOP'13 copyright-permission statement to include in your existing ACM SIG formatted file.
See this pdf to view how the ACM copyright-permission statement should appear at the bottom left of your paper.
(d) Click to continue reading and reviewing the formatting & submission requirements of your final version

LaTex Instructions
 (a) Read through the ACM copyright and permissions policy to make yourself aware of any conflicts, expectations, releases, and 3rd party material information that will be needed to include certain figures, images, or other material in your submission:
ACM Copyright & Permissions Policy
and
ACM's requirements about 3rd party material
*NOTE: The ACM eform assigned to your paper should be completed within 48-72 hours after receipt. The ACM eform only takes a few moments to complete.
(b) This specified class file must be used for your submission:
sig-alternate class file (right click to download the sig-alternate class file to use)
(c) When using the specified class file above, you may want to fetch the additional sample files and instructions provided under 'Option 2: LaTeX2e' from http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates#aL2
(d)

 

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Include the following five (5) lines in your .tex document after \begin{document} will produce the correct ACM & needed conference copyright statement and needed info for the bottom/left of the first page:

\conferenceinfo{WCOP'13,} {June 17, 2013, Vancouver, BC, Canada.}
\CopyrightYear{2013}
\crdata{978-1-4503-2125-9/13/06}
\clubpenalty=10000
\widowpenalty = 10000

(e)

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*Latex users, please note that a postscript (PS) version is mandatory of your submission when you submit. This is because 13 out of 17 pdflatex submissions do not have all fonts embedded properly.
(f) Type 1 or TrueType fonts must be used. Type 3 fonts are NOT allowed. TrueType fonts are allowable, but will be tested for any problems which may need to be rectified. For help on obtaining the correct type of fonts, see this hint in the ACM FAQ list
(g) LaTex users, please note we are not allowed to compile or re-compile your submission. ACM & Sheridan Communications requests your .tex files to verify special characters, symbols, and/or accents when creating the metadata for the DL. These can be all submitted together as a ZIP for the source file.
(h) Click to continue reading and reviewing the formatting & submission requirements of your final version


3. Mandatory Fields for your Submission's Preparation. Please continue reading for additional information on preparing your final version, which includes the requirements for Page Size, File Naming Scheme, ACM Classification Sections, Images, Figures, Illustrations, Bad Breaks, Creating an ACM compliant pdf, Optional accompanying thumbnail image and caption.
Page Size

The page size for this ACM publication is US Letter Portrait (8-1/2x11 inches). US Letter is a standard option in most applications. Submissions that do not conform to the ACM SIG standards, templates, and formats will be returned to the author for corrections and/or alterations.

File Naming Scheme

Name your .doc or .tex, .pdf, .ps (for latex submissions) and thumbnail files using your submission ID# with the lead (first) author's last name (example: wcop123-weaver.doc / wcop123-weaver.pdf). See the email with notification of acceptance and formatting instructions from acm@sheridanprinting.com for your specific assigned ID# (letter+numeric combination)

Title

The ACM formatting for the title is 18 pt. Helvetica or Arial Bold and Initial Caps.

Must be in Initial Caps Meaning First Letter of the Main Words Should be Made Capital Letters. Capitalize the First Letter of Main Words in the Title (Most Nouns), except a, an, the, conjunctions (and, but, or, for,…), & prepositions (of, to, in, on,…)
*Note the Capital Letter "M" in Must, Meaning, and Main
*Note the Capital Letter "C" in Caps and Capital
*Note the Capital Letter "L" in Letter and Letters

Authors' Complete Names, Email, Affiliation, & Affiliation Location

Be sure to update the final version of your PDF prior to submitting to include all authors full first/given, middle, and last/family names, and correct affiliation names, location, and other information under the title of the paper. See page 1 of the ACM sample pdf.
*All authors Full First/Given names are required to ensure proper indexing for authors with multiple papers and combining authors in the ACM DL directory.

Abstract

Authors are strongly encouraged to include a brief summary (abstract) of their work in the first section of their submission after the title, authors, and affiliation information on the first page. See page 1 of the ACM sample pdf.

References It is mandatory include all works cited in their work/submission in a References section at the end of the paper or extended abstract. See page 4 of the ACM sample pdf.

Force balancing your Last Page

 

Word Users: The ACM word template does automatically balance the last page if the last line is not deleted. If this has been removed accidentally, please use returns or use the tools available:
"Insert" → "Break" → "Column Break" to force text or material to the 2nd column.

  LaTeX Users: If your last page of references is appearing as two unbalanced columns, see sample 1 below. We suggest using "\vfill\eject" before the appropriate reference to force text or references to the 2nd column, see sample 2 below to see the effect of inserting the coding "\vfill\eject" before reference #19.

Sample 1 with an Unbalanced Last Page

Sample 2 showing the result of force balancing

ACM Classification Sections

 

 

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The "Categories and Subject Descriptors" and "Keywords" are mandatory by ACM on the first page of your submission after the Abstract text. See page 1 of the ACM sample pdf, how these 2 sections should appear on your submission. The "General Terms" are no longer mandatory to appear on the first page of your paper.

Categories and Subject Descriptors (Mandatory for the first page of your paper): Make sure that your selection included on the first page of your paper after Authors' Keywords are also chosen properly on the submission page. Click here for information on the ACM Computing Classification (1998) Scheme to be used.

General Terms (need to be chosen in the submission system, but remember this section does not have to appear on the first page)

Keywords: This section is your (author) choice of terms that you would like used to index your work (and separated by semi-colons). We are requesting semi-colons because there is a growing amount of technical terms with commas.

Bad Breaks

Be sure you do not have bad page breaks or bad column breaks. One example of a bad column break is a ‘widow.”
A “widow” occurs when the last line of a paragraph that begins at the bottom of one column appears by itself at the top of the next column). If this happens, tighten the previous column to bring it back, or force an additional line of text over to the next column.
Also make sure that Section and Sub-section heads have at least 2 lines of body text below them when they appear at the end of a page or column.

Bad Breaks: Widows

  Be sure you do not have bad page breaks or bad column breaks. One example of a bad column break is a ‘widow.” A “widow” occurs when the last line of a paragraph that begins at the bottom of one column appears by itself at the top of the next column). If this happens, tighten the previous column to bring it back, or force an additional line of text over to the next column. See these 2 examples/samples showing specific widows (bad breaks) within submissions.

Sample 4

Sample 5

 
  Word Users: To rectify this add or remove some text above --or-- increase the leading between some paragraphs --or-- increase/decrease the size of an image or table on the previous page..
  LaTeX Users: Using these two lines of code with the ACM copyright/cr data coding will help reduce or eliminate the appearance of bad breaks (widows & section head breaks):

\clubpenalty=10000
\widowpenalty = 10000

*If some widows still appear, see this ACM FAQ on how to rectify these issues.

 

 

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Bad Breaks: Section Heads

 

Be sure you do not have bad page breaks or bad column breaks. Make sure that Section and Sub-section heads have at least 2 lines of body text below them when they appear at the end of a page or column. See these 2 examples/samples showing specific bad section head breaks.

Sample 1

Sample 2

 

  Word Users: To rectify this add extra text or space above the section head to force the head over to the next column or page -- or-- try reducing a line or two of text before.
 

LaTeX Users: Using these two lines of code with the ACM copyright/cr data coding will help reduce or eliminate the appearance of bad breaks (widows & section head breaks):

\clubpenalty=10000
\widowpenalty = 10000

but using the coding \vfill\eject just before the section head code will force over the head to the next page or column to help rectify the bad break.

Images & Figures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are recommendations to ensure good print reproduction of your images, figures, and illustrations utilized in your submission.

(a) Colors and Black & White (Gray Scale) Print Testing. If you have any images in color, please print your paper out in black and white to ensure that the tones and screens used in your images or figures reproduce well in black and white, too. However, your images will appear in full color in any distributed electronic proceedings and in the ACM digital library.

(b) Resolution & CMYK: Images in your document should be at least 300 or 600 dpi for quality reproduction and saved as .tif images (or other compatible format that supports print quality resolution). When creating or revising your images for inclusion in the paper, we recommend choosing CMYK (and not RGB) as the color profile.

(c) TIF (EPS) vs JPG (JPEG) images: TIFs are preferred for press applications where quality takes priority over file size. When TIFs are compressed (LZW compression option when saving out of Photoshop, for example), no image data is lost, thus ensuring maximum quality. A JPEG is a compressed image format designed to keep the file size small, which makes it ideal for use in web graphics.To do this, the JPEG format actually deletes image data from the image. The higher the level of compression, the more data is removed. This is referred to as a lossy compression system. On a printout, the removed data tends to show up as blocky areas of a solid color. At higher resolutions (a minimum of 200 dpi), there's usually enough data in the JPEG file for the compression artifacts to be very noticeable.

(d) Rules/Lines: Rules used in your graphs, tables or charts must be at least 0.5+ pt. and black for quality reproduction. Finer lines and points than this will not reproduce well, even if you can see them on your laser printed hardcopy when checked -- your laser printers have a far lower resolution than the imagesetters that will be used.

(e) Fonts: If your figure uses custom or any non-standard font, the characters may appear differently when printed in the proceedings. Remember to check your figure creation to ensure that all fonts are embedded or included in the figure correctly. Be sure that your images do not contain any Type 3 fonts.

(f) Transparencies: If a figure or image is assembled from multiple images, the images must be embedded, layers flattened or grouped together properly in the file, not lined. Transparencies need to be flattened.

No Page Numbering, Headers, & Footers
Your final submission MUST NOT contain any footer or header string information at the top or bottom of each page, nor any page numbering. The submissions will be paginated in a determined order by the chairs and page numbers added to the PDF during the compiling, indexing, and pagination process.
 
Acknowledgements

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It is the contact or submitting author's responsibility to be sure that any funding or special contribution acknowledgements are included in the final version submitted as required by any research, financial, or other grants received (by using the Acknowledgements section before the References section). See page 4 of the ACM sample pdf.

Creating an ACM Compliant PDF (Mandatory)

Your PDF file must be ACM Compliant to be included in the Digital Library. The requirements for an ACM Compliant PDF are Outlined Here.
To obtain the (acm.joboptions) to use ACM distiller settings for full versions of Adobe Acrobat and Distiller ONLY. The acm.joboptions has all the settings and requirements to create an ACM compliant PDF with Adobe Acrobat-Distiller.

Thumbnail Image (Optional) ACM requests a thumbnail image to identify your paper (often a representative segment of a figure in your paper) that will appear in the ACM DL only. This thumbnail image is "optional" and should be at least 72 dpi .jpg format (.jpg format ONLY).
If you do submit a thumbnail image, a short-brief caption (20-30 words) is required.

Click here for examples of thumbnails used within the ACM DL.

4. Submission Page Fields & Submitting the Files Necessary
Remember to Submit All the Relevant Information and Correct Files When you Submit.
Submit your final version only (not drafts).

Submission Deadline The submission deadline is April 17th.
Papers and Abstracts not submitted on time will NOT appear in the proceedings, nor in the ACM DL.
Submission Page

 

 

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When your final version is ready, you need to complete the submission page and upload your .doc/docx and .pdf files or .tex, .ps, & .pdf files (as well as, the optional thumbnail image) on or before April 17th. Remember to see the email from acm@sheridanprinting.com with the unique-supplied direct link to submit your final version. We also recommend using a modern, standards-compliant Web browser to upload the necessary files.
If you are unable to find your direct submission information, please use the following link: Sheridan Communications's Submission System for ACM to request your unique and individual submission link.

Title

Double check your title and the title field on the submission page:
1. Does your present title exist in the submission page title field? If not, Cut and Paste the Title from your Source File into this Field on the Submission Page (not from your pdf).
2. Be sure that the title is in Initial Caps -- Initial Caps Meaning First Letter of the Main Words Should be Made Capital Letters. Capitalize the First Letter of Main Words in the Title (Most Nouns), except a, an, the, conjunctions (and, but, or, for,…), & prepositions (of, to, in, on,…)
*Note the Capital Letter "M" in Must, Meaning, and Main
*Note the Capital Letter "C" in Caps and Capital
*Note the Capital Letter "L" in Letter and Letters

Contact Name Enter the name of the contact or contact author
Contact's Email Address Enter the contact's or contact author's email address
Authors' Complete Names, Email, Affiliation, & Affiliation Location

Make sure that every author’s affiliation is entered properly (spelling and correct affiliation name), including department or lab (if any in its appropriate field), main institution or corporate affiliation, as well as the specific location (city, state/provience, and country).

Authors with multiple affiliations: please enter them on the same line of the submission system and only list the main affiliation's location:
Example 1

Affiliations: Microsoft Research & University of Washington
Location City: Redmond
Location State: Washington
Location Country: USA

Example 2

Affiliations: Eindhoven University of Technology & Philips Research
Location City: Eindhoven
Location Country: Netherlands

Abstract

Cut and paste the abstract text from your source document into the abstract field on the submission page (not from your pdf). The abstract on the submission page is the one that will appear in ACM Digital Library associated with your paper and must match the abstract text that appears on page 1 of your submission.

References

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Authors are strongly encouraged to include all works cited in their work/submission in a References section at the end of the paper or abstract. See page 4 of the ACM sample pdf.

ACM needs the references/citations to be copy and pasted from your word processor into this text field.
Word Users:
Please cut and paste this information into the submission page form directly from your source (.doc/docx) file, NOT from your pdf.
LaTeX Users:
PLEASE DO NOT submit your BibTeX data/directory. Instead submit the text & coding from your .bbl file created when you compile your document.

ACM Classifications

 

 

 

 

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Do not skip this RED-OUTLINED box on the submission page after the References field.

Step 1: Choose the ACM classifiers (Categories & Subject Descriptors) included on the first page of your paper and as best relates to your submission.

Step 2: Choose one or more of the following General Terms which relates to your paper in the submission system.

Algorithms

Experimentation Management Security
Design Human Factors Measurement Standardization
Documentation Languages Performance Theory
Economics Legal Aspects Reliability Verification

Step 3: Cut and paste the author keywords into the Keywords field, separated semi-colons.

Step 4: Choose any additional ACM classifiers (Categories & Subject Descriptors) included on the first page of your paper and as best relates to your submission.

Source File Browse and attach the Final Version of your Submission's Source File (.doc, .docx, .tex, etc). Double check that your pdf is ACM compliant and US letter page size.
PDF File Browse and attach the Final Version of your Submission's PDF File (.pdf). Double check that your pdf is ACM compliant and US letter page size.
PS File (LaTeX only) Browse and attach the Postscript/PS file of your Submission's final version. LaTeX users, a PS file is mandatory.
Thumbnail Image (optional) Browse and attach the thumbnail image associated with your submission. Remember .jpg/.jpeg format only.
Thumbnail Image Caption Enter the text (20-30) words to be used as a caption to describe the thumbnail image associated with your paper or abstract.
Note. A Caption is mandatory if you are submitting a thumbnail.

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Click Submit

5. After You Submit (What to Expect)

Confirmation
You will see a confirmation screen after a successful upload. As well, a confirmation email will be sent to the contact's email address entered on the submission page.

ACM Form to be Completed

The contact author will receive a link to the appropriate ACM copyright-permission form to sign after the final version has been checked, processed, and verified (within a few days after the submission deadline). The ACM copyright/permission forms usually only takes moments to complete. Please give this your immediate attention when the link for the appropriate copyrights and permissions form is received.

OK or Fixes Needed

You will be contacted by one of the publication coordinators at Sheridan Communications. Please be patient due to large volume of submissions that must be processed and checked. The coordinator will inform you of the following:
(i) That everything is in order with your submission.
--OR--
(ii) That you must fix something before it is final. If this is true, you will receive specific information about how to revise your submission to meet requirements, and a new deadline will be given to submit the corrected material. You are required by the chairs to adhere to this NEW deadline so publication is not delayed.

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If you still have questions or problems about the ACM & SIG formatting requirements, please contact us at Sheridan Communications via telephone at +1-908-213-8988 or via email with the conference acronym (WCOP'13) in the subject line.