Information for Authors

Final Accepted Papers

All camera-ready papers must be formatted in the standard ACM conference format and strictly adhere to the following page limits:

  • The body of a paper may comprise up to 14 pages of content (from Abstract to Conclusion).
  • Papers that have a research artifact submitted and approved by the artifact evaluation committee may use up to 2 additional pages, at no charge, for an appendix that solely describes the artifact.
  • The sections at the end of the paper should be ordered as follows: first acknowledgements, then appendices, and last references.

More details regarding the camera-ready instructions have been sent in the Author Kit email.

Submissions

This webpage provides instructions for submitting papers to the 26th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS), 2021. In an effort to respect the efforts of reviewers and in the interest of fairness to all prospective authors, we request that all submissions to ASPLOS’21 follow the formatting and submission rules detailed below. Submissions that violate these instructions may not be reviewed, at the discretion of the program chairs.  

To help you with formatting your papers, we provide a sample paper and a sample extended abstract, both formatted to meet ASPLOS’21 requirements. We also provide LaTeX templates for both the paper and extended abstract. 

All questions regarding paper formatting and submission should be directed to the program co-chairs.

Submission Site

Please follow this link to submit your paper.

Paper registration deadline:August 14 2020 (2:59:59pm US Pacific Time)
Paper and extended abstract submission deadline:August 21 2020 (2:59:59pm US Pacific Time)

Highlights

  • Papers should contain a maximum of 10 pages of single-spaced two-column text, not including references. You may also submit a separate, anonymous 2-page appendix.
  • All submitted papers must be accompanied by an extended abstract, in a separate file with a maximum of 2 pages of single-spaced two-column text, not including references.
  • Papers and extended abstracts must be submitted in printable PDF format.
  • Text must be in a minimum 10pt (not 9pt) font.
  • No page limit for references for papers and the extended abstracts.
  • Each reference must specify all authors (no et al.).
  • Authors of all accepted papers will be required to record a short (less than 2 minute) video that previews the paper. This video substitutes for a lightning talk.
  • Authors of all accepted papers will be required to have a poster in addition to the regular conference talk.
  • Proceedings will appear in the ACM Digital Library up to two weeks before the conference.

Frequently Asked Questions

Paper Evaluation Objectives

The committee will make every effort to fairly judge each submitted paper on its own merits. There will be no target acceptance rate.  We expect to accept a wide range of papers with appropriate expectations for evaluation. Papers that build on significant past work with strong evaluations are valuable,  We encourage you to consider the SIGPLAN empirical evaluation guidelines for the evaluation of the ideas in your paper; we expect reviewers to employ these guidelines for their reviews. At the same time,  papers that open new areas with less rigorous evaluation are equally welcome and especially encouraged. Given the wide range of topics covered by ASPLOS, every effort will be made to find expert reviewers.

This year, ASPLOS will pilot the use of extended abstracts. All paper submissions must be accompanied by a 2-page extended abstract, submitted as a separate PDF file.  Extended abstracts will be used throughout the reviewing process so that a larger number of PC members have a better understanding of each paper as they make decisions. The extended abstract and the paper must be independent (standalone) documents that a reviewer can read separately. Since reviewers will have access to both documents, authors can trim the introductory material in the paper. The extended abstract can refer to figures and sections in the main paper.

ASPLOS’21 will also feature Artifact Evaluation for accepted papers. Although encouraged, Artifact Evaluation submission is not required, nor will it be used as a condition for paper acceptance into ASPLOS 2021. Reviewers will not have visibility into the availability of such artifacts. We request that authors do not refer to them in their paper submissions.

Paper and Abstract Preparation Instructions

Paper Formatting

Papers must be submitted in printable PDF format and should contain a maximum of 10 pages of single-spaced two-column text, not including references. You may include any number of pages for references, but see below for more instructions. You may optionally submit an anonymous appendix as a separate PDF that is a maximum of 2 pages in length. If you are using LaTeX to typeset your paper, we suggest that you use this template. If you use a different software package to typeset your paper, please adhere to the guidelines given in the table below.

Field Value
File format PDF
Page limit 10 pages, not including references
Paper size US Letter 8.5in x 11in
Top margin 1in
Bottom margin 1in
Left margin 0.75in
Right margin 0.75in
Body 2-column, single-spaced
Separation between columns 0.25in
Body font size 10pt
Abstract font 10pt, italicized
Section heading font 12pt, bold
Subsection heading font 10pt, bold
Caption font 9pt, bold
References 8pt, no page limit, list all authors’ names

Please ensure that you include page numbers with your submission. This makes it easier for reviewers to refer to different parts of your paper when they provide comments. Please ensure that your submission has a banner at the top of the title page, as shown in this sample paper, which contains the submission number and the notice of confidentiality. If using the template, just replace XXX with your submission number.

Extended Abstract Formatting

The extended abstracts must be submitted in printable PDF format and should contain a maximum of 2 pages of single-spaced two-column text, not including references.  You may include any number of pages for references, but see below for more instructions. The extended abstracts should use the same formatting as the papers. If you are using LaTeX to typeset your extended abstract, then we suggest that you use this template that also describes that information to include in your extended abstract.

Content

Author List. Reviewing will be double blind; therefore, do not include any author names or affiliations on any submitted documents except in the space provided on the submission form. You must also ensure that the metadata included in the PDF does not give away the authors. If you are improving upon your prior work, refer to your prior work in the third person and include a full citation for the work in the bibliography. For example, if you are building on your own prior work in the papers [2, 3, 4], you would say something like: “While the authors of [2, 3, 4] did X, Y, and Z, this paper additionally does W, and is therefore much better.” Do NOT omit or anonymize references for blind review. There is one exception to this: your own prior work that appeared in IEEE CAL, workshops without archived proceedings, etc. as discussed later in this document. (For more frequently-asked questions about double-blind reviewing, please consult this FAQ from PLDI 2020.)

Figures and Tables. Ensure that the figures and tables are legible. Please also ensure that you refer to your figures in the main text. Many reviewers print the papers in gray-scale. Therefore, if you use colors for your figures, ensure that the different colors are highly distinguishable in gray-scale.

References. There is no length limit for references. Each reference must explicitly list all authors of the paper. Papers not meeting this requirement will be rejected. Authors of NSF proposals should be familiar with this requirement. Knowing all authors of related work will help find the best reviewers. Since there is no length limit for the number of pages used for references, there is no need to save space here.

Evaluation. Authors of empirical papers are encouraged to consider the seven categories of the SIGPLAN Empirical Evaluation Guidelines when preparing their submissions.

Paper and Abstract Submission Instructions

Declaring Authors

Declare all the authors of the paper upfront. Addition/removal of authors once the paper is accepted will have to be approved by the program chairs, since it potentially undermines the goal of eliminating conflicts for reviewer assignment.

Areas and Topics

ASPLOS emphasizes multidisciplinary research. Submissions should ideally emphasize synergy of two or more ASPLOS areas: architecture, programming languages, operating systems, and related areas (broadly interpreted). Authors should indicate these areas on the submission form as well as specific topics covered by the paper for optimal reviewer match. If you are unsure whether your paper falls within the scope of ASPLOS, please check with the program chairs– ASPLOS is a broad, multidisciplinary conference and encourages new topics.

Declaring Conflicts of Interest

Authors must register all their conflicts on the paper submission site. Conflicts are needed to ensure appropriate assignment of reviewers. If a paper is found to have an undeclared conflict that causes a problem OR if a paper is found to declare false conflicts in order to abuse or “game” the review system, the paper may be summarily rejected. Please declare a conflict of interest (COI) with the following for any author of your paper:

  • Your Ph.D. advisor(s), post-doctoral advisor(s), Ph.D. students, and post-doctoral advisees, forever.
  • Family relations by blood or marriage and close friends, forever (if they might be potential reviewers). You are a close friend with someone if you have or would spend a night at their home if you were visiting them, or vice versa. 
  • People with whom you have collaborated in the last five years, including
    • co-authors of accepted/rejected/pending papers.
    • co-PIs of accepted/rejected/pending grant proposals.
    • funders (decision-makers) of your research grants, and researchers whom you fund.
  • People who shared your primary institution(s) and with whom you had research interactions (including brainstorming, reading groups, etc) in the last five years.

“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 of interest. Co-authoring a paper that is a compendium of various projects with no true collaboration among the projects does not constitute a conflict among the authors of the different projects. On the other hand, there may be others not covered by the above with whom you believe a COI exists, for example, close personal friends. Please report such COIs; however, you may be asked to justify them. Please be reasonable. For example, you must not declare a COI with a reviewer just because that reviewer works on topics similar to or related to those in your paper. The program chairs may contact co-authors to explain a COI whose origin is unclear. We hope to draw most reviewers from the PC and the ERC, but others from the community may also write reviews. Please declare all your conflicts (not just restricted to the PC and ERC). When in doubt, contact the program chairs.

Concurrent Submissions and Workshops

By submitting a manuscript to ASPLOS ’21, the authors guarantee that the manuscript has not been previously published or accepted for publication in a substantially similar form in any conference, journal, or workshop. The only exceptions are (1) workshops without archived proceedings such as in the ACM digital library (or where the authors chose not to have their paper appear in the archived proceedings), or (2) venues, such as IEEE CAL, where there is an explicit policy that such publication does not preclude longer conference submissions. These are not considered prior publications.  Technical reports and papers posted on public social media sites, Web pages, or online repositories, such as arxiv.org, are not considered prior publications either. In these cases, the submitted manuscript may ignore the posted work to preserve author anonymity.   The authors also guarantee that no paper that contains significant overlap with the contributions of the submitted paper will be under review for any other conference, journal, or workshop during the ASPLOS ’21 review period. Violation of any of these conditions will lead to rejection.  As always, if you are in doubt, it is best to contact the program chairs.  Finally, we also note that the ACM Plagiarism Policy (http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism_policy) covers a range of ethical issues concerning the misrepresentation of other works or one’s own work.

Ethical Obligations

  • Authors are not allowed to contact reviewers or PC members to encourage or solicit them to bid on any paper.
  • Authors are not allowed to attempt to sway a reviewer to review any paper positively or negatively.
  • Authors are not allowed to contact reviewers or PC members requesting any type of information about the reviewing process, either in general or specifically about submitted papers.
  • Authors are not allowed to contact reviewers or PC members to ask about the outcomes of any papers.
  • Authors must also abide by the ACM ethics policy. Violation of the ACM ethics policy may result in rejection of the submission and possible action by the ACM.
  • Authors are not allowed to advertise their submissions or related technical reports and postings (e.g., to arxiv.org or online repositories) on social media or community blogs and webpages during the period starting two weeks before the submission deadline and ending when the ASPLOS’21 acceptance results are public.

Early Access in the Digital Library

The ASPLOS ’21 proceedings will be freely available via the ACM Digital Library for up to two weeks before and up to a month after the conference. Authors must consider any implications of this early disclosure of their work before submitting their papers.

Acknowledgements

Several ideas in this document and parts of the text have been taken from previous conferences, so we thank their program chairs.  In particular, Luis Ceze and Karin Strauss (ASPLOS’20), Emmett Witchel and Alvy Lebeck (ASPLOS ’19), Ricardo Bianchini and Vivek Sarkar (ASPLOS ’18), John Carter (ASPLOS ’17), Yuanyuan Zhou (ASPLOS ’16), Sandhya Dwarkadas (ASPLOS ’15), Sarita Adve (ASPLOS ’14), Steve Keckler (ISCA ’14), Christos Kozyrakis (MICRO ’13), Margaret Martonosi (ISCA ’13), Onur Mutlu (MICRO ’12), and Michael L. Scott (ASPLOS ’12).

Example References

[1] Leslie Lamport. LATEX: A Document Preparation System. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 2nd Edition, 1994.

[2] Firstname1 Lastname1 and Firstname2 Lastname2. A very nice paper to cite. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, 2012.

[3] Firstname1 Lastname1, Firstname2 Lastname2, and Firstname3 Lastname3. Another very nice paper to cite. In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, 2011.

[4] Firstname1 Lastname1, Firstname2 Lastname2, Firstname3 Lastname3, Firstname4 Lastname4, and Firstname5 Lastname5. Yet another very nice paper to cite, with many author names all spelled out. In Proceedings of the 38th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture, 2011.