Dear colleagues,

Please consider submitting your work to ACM IMC 2024.

Abstract registration (May 8th) and paper submission (May 15^th) deadlines are quickly approaching (see details in the CFP below)

We are looking forward to see your submission and you in Madrid!

Best wishes,

Ignacio

Call For Papers, ACM IMC 2024

The Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) is a highly selective venue for the presentation of measurement-based research in data communications. As we are in the era of data-driven research, IMC 2024 will focus on improving the standard in the collection, usage, and sharing of network measurements for the research community. Despite the efforts in stimulating reproducibility of research as well as sharing of data, little progress has been made in our community to make research data open. Therefore, without fundamentally changing the topics in scope compared to previous years, our attention when assessing contributions will be particularly on the willingness of the authors to share their data and make their work reproducible.

To encourage data sharing and reproducibility, authors will be required to make a declaration on artifact availability (full, partial, or no availability) for the submitted work. Since legitimate reasons (such as proprietary and privacy reasons) may prevent authors from sharing artifacts, papers will be assessed based on whether the contributions warrant acceptance despite the lack of artifact availability. In the case of no availability of artifacts, the authors are expected to explain why this is the case in a specific section. Artifact submission is not required at the paper submission time. All papers accepted to the program will be shepherded to ensure that the artifacts promised have been made available.

IMC takes a broad view of contributions that are considered in scope for improving the practice of network measurement, including, but not limited to:

• collection and analysis of data that yield new insights about network structure and network performance (e.g., traffic, topology, routing, energy utilization, performance)
• collection and analysis of data that yield new insights about application and end-user behavior (e.g., economics, privacy, security, application interaction with protocols)
• measurement-based modeling (e.g., workloads, scaling behavior, assessment of performance bottlenecks, causality)
• methods and tools to monitor and visualize network-based phenomena
• systems and algorithms that build on measurement-based findings
• theoretical analysis and modeling of networked-systems and measurement techniques
• novel methods for data collection, analysis, and storage (e.g., anonymization, querying, sharing)
• reappraisal of previous empirical network measurements and measurement-based conclusions
• descriptions of challenges and future directions the measurement community should pursue

Networks of interest include:

• Internet transit networks
• edge networks, including home networks, broadband access networks (e.g., cable, fiber), and cellular networks
• data center networks and cloud computing infrastructure
• peer-to-peer, overlay, and content distribution networks
• software-defined networks
• online social networks
• online services, platforms, and content providers
• experimental networks, prototype networks, and future internetworks

Replicability Track:

IMC 2024 will continue the Replicability Track for submissions that aim to reproduce or replicate results that have been previously published at IMC. Papers accepted to this track will be published in ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review (CCR). Priority will be given to replicability studies, although reproducibility studies are also in scope. For the definitions, please see ACM’s site. The authors of outstanding replicability papers may receive an invitation to present at the main conference. In that case, the paper would also be included in IMC’s proceedings (rather than CCR).

Submissions to this track are two-phase. Prospective authors are invited to submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) via the submission system in the form of an abstract which must explain:

• Which paper the authors aim to replicate
• Whether the paper will be replicated or reproduced
• What the IMC community stands to learn from the replication or reproduction
• Chosen approach, and why it will lead to new insights

A small committee will evaluate the EoIs and their potential to be of interest to the IMC community. The authors of strong abstracts will receive an invitation to a full submission.

The EoI serves to avoid misunderstandings and disappointment for authors as we acknowledge that replicating or reproducing a paper is a very significant effort to which potential authors would commit much time.

Full submissions will then be assessed by the TPC. Full submissions must otherwise conform to the same criteria and rules as full submissions on the main track (see below).

See the Important Dates section for the EoI deadline. Full submissions have the same deadlines (abstract registration and full submission) as the IMC main deadline.

Review process and criteria

IMC 2024 invites two forms of submissions:

• Full papers (up to 13 pages for text and figures + unlimited pages for references and appendix) that describe original research, with succinctness appropriate to the topics and themes they discuss.
• Short papers (up to 6 pages for text and figures + unlimited pages for references and appendix) that convey work that is less mature but shows exciting promise, OR offer results that do not merit a full submission. Short papers could articulate a high-level vision and describe challenging future directions that the authors believe the community should tackle; validate, verify, or update important results; or present new ideas that challenge existing assumptions. Our plan is to assign a subset of the reviewers to the evaluation of short papers (only). These reviewers will be reminded of the specific expectations for short papers.

Any submission exceeding the short paper page-length limit will be evaluated as a full paper.

Authors should submit only original work that has not been published before and is not under submission to any other venue. We will consider full paper submissions that extend previously published short, preliminary papers (including IMC short papers), in accordance with the SIGCOMM policy and the ACM Plagiarism Policy. The ACM policy on simultaneous submissions does not consider technical reports (including arXiv) to be concurrent publication or submission.

The review process will have several reviewing rounds. To allow authors time to improve their work and submit to other venues, authors of submissions for which there is a consensus on rejection will be notified early.

IMC 2024 will bestow three awards on paper submissions, (1) a Best Paper award; (2) a Best Student Paper award; and (3) a Community Contribution award. All accepted papers are eligible for the best paper award; the best student paper award is limited to papers whose main author is a student at the time of submission. The community contribution award will recognize a paper with an outstanding contribution to the community in the form of a new dataset, source code distribution, open platform, or other noteworthy service to the community. To be eligible for the community award, the authors must make data or source code publicly available or have a software artifact that is accessible and usable by the public at the time of the camera-ready deadline. The authors indicate their eligibility on the submission form and are also encouraged to include a link to the contribution in the submitted paper.

A few accepted papers may be forwarded for fast-track submission to IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

Detailed submission instructions

For all information about paper submission—including anonymity, ethics, use of generative AI, and paper formatting—please see the Detailed Submission Instructions page.

Expression of Interest (papers for the Replicability Track)            Feb 28th, 2024

Notification for the Replicability Track Expression of Interest      Mar 8th, 2024

Paper registration (with abstract, including invited papers to Replicability Track)               May 8th, 2024

Paper submission (including invited papers to Replicability Track)       May 15th, 2024

Early reject notification    June 28th, 2024

Notification         July 31st, 2024

Camera-ready due            Sep 11th, 2024

Conference          Nov 4th - 6th, 2024

Diversity and Inclusiveness

As part of our efforts at fostering diversity and inclusiveness, we provide the following guidelines to assist you when preparing your paper submission and/or your conference presentation.

Inclusivity Guidelines: Good technical writing often requires pedagogical examples to explain complex ideas. These provide an opportunity to promote inclusiveness by challenging implicit biases and assumptions.

• Avoid gender-specific pronouns if possible. Where required, consider interspersing a balance of male (“he”, “his”), female (“she”, “her”), and gender-neutral (“they”, “their”) ones.
• Use gender-neutral names in examples. Instead of Alice and Bob, try Alex and Jun. Consider names that reflect a variety of cultural backgrounds: Esteban, Naveena, Sasha, Sergey, Tuan, Xin, and so on.
• Refrain from assuming binary gender. For instance, the “gender” column in a table of data should have more than just “male” and “female” values.
• Be mindful of people’s diverse backgrounds. Not everyone has two parents. Not every marriage involves “husband” and “wife”. Not everyone lives in a house, or has a car.

Accessibility Guidelines: Color and hearing perception varies from person to person depending on age, color blindness, distance, visual acuity, etc. Make sure that the contents of your paper are accessible to all, by considering the following:

• Use patterns, symbols, and textures to emphasize and contrast visual elements in graphs and figures, rather than using colors alone. Graphs should be readable either in monochrome or color versions.
• Use a color palette that is designed for visually-impaired or color-blind people. Avoid poor color combinations such as green/red or blue/purple.

Submission Site

Please submit your paper at https://imc2024.hotcrp.com.