ACM journals and transactions are designed to publish research results which are the gold standard for the profession, i.e., they are of high novelty and interest, technically sound, and well presented. Achieving this level of quality requires a review process that provides the time necessary for careful review by acknowledged experts in the field. In particular, this means selection of reviewers from the widest possible pool, and open- ended review cycles that ensure the most sound and polished result. Such a standard is largely incompatible with conference review procedures which are sharply constrained by deadline. Because of this, it is the ACM Publications Board’s policy that conference proceedings should not be published as issues of ACM journals or transactions. While review schemes have been proposed that attempt to meet the needs of both conferences and journals, the Board feels that to avoid confusion the brands "journal" and "transactions" must be reserved for an open-ended review process.

At the same time, the Board recognizes that many conferences publish research that is of top-quality, and hence encourages ACM Journal Editors-in-Chief and Conference Program Chairs to develop mutually beneficial methods to collaborate. Some examples that the Board finds particularly worthy are the following.

• Best Conference Papers Invited for Journal Submission
  
  Journals may establish relationships with particular conferences to enable extended versions of the "best" few papers for the conference to be invited for submission for journal publication, possibly appearing in a special section of the journal dedicated to the conference. The journal paper should be an expanded version of the conference paper with, for example, more complete background, more detailed project descriptions, and additional results. This allows authors to present a more complete description of the work. ACM's Policy on Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submission provides additional guidance on submitting expanded versions of conference papers to journals.



• Journal Article Authors Invited for Conference Presentation
  
  Conferences may establish relationships with journals to extend invitations to authors of recently published journal articles to present their results at the conference (without a separate publication in the proceedings). This affords authors the prestige of presentation at the conference while allowing the journal to maintain a refereeing process without fixed deadlines.

Approved July 2014