Communications Of The ACM

Contents

1. Overview
2. Etymology
3. Cultural Impact

Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM (CACM), as the name rather unsubtly suggests, is the monthly journal published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It’s less a mere publication and more a… well, a communication channel. For everyone.

Publication Details

Language: English. Because what else would it be?
Editor: Currently helmed by Andrew A. Chien . One hopes he possesses more foresight than the average mortal.
History: It’s been around since 1958 . That’s old enough to have seen the birth of modern computing and probably witnessed a few existential crises along the way.
Publisher: The Association for Computing Machinery itself, based in the United States. A self-congratulatory loop, perhaps?
Frequency: Monthly. They churn it out like cheap novels, but with more equations.
Open Access: Yes, as of February 2024. They finally decided to stop hoarding knowledge, bless their hearts. This is part of a broader ACM initiative to make all their content accessible. Apparently, the universe deemed it so.
Impact Factor: A rather robust 11.1 in 2023. High enough to make other journals sweat, I imagine.
Standard Abbreviations: They have a whole suite of them, for those who speak in acronyms. ISO 4 (alt), Bluebook (alt), NLM (alt), MathSciNet (alt), ISO 4 . And if that’s not enough, CODEN (alt · alt2), JSTOR (alt), LCCN (alt), MIAR, NLM (alt), Scopus, and W&L are also available. Because apparently, brevity is the soul of wit, but verbosity is the soul of academic indexing.
ISSN: 0001-0782. The universal identifier for this particular flavor of intellectual output.

History

Established in 1958 , with Saul Rosen taking the helm as its inaugural managing editor. It’s a publication that lands in the hands of every single ACM member. Imagine that. A monthly dose of computer science, whether you asked for it or not.

The articles are ostensibly crafted for individuals across the entire spectrum of computer science and information systems . The emphasis is on the practical ramifications of technological advancements and the attendant management quandaries. ACM, in its infinite wisdom, also publishes journals that are considerably more… theoretical. This journal, however, occupies a curious space, hovering between a science magazine , a trade magazine , and a bona fide scientific journal .

While the content does undergo peer review —a ritualistic purification of ideas—the published articles frequently serve as distilled summaries of research that may have already been disseminated elsewhere. The cardinal rule: the material must be comprehensible and relevant to a wide audience. No obscure jargon for the sake of it, apparently.

From 1960 onwards, CACM took to publishing algorithms , meticulously expressed in ALGOL . This collection of algorithmic pronouncements eventually coalesced into what is now known as the Collected Algorithms of the ACM. A rather formal name for what is essentially a glorified recipe book for computers.

The journal declared its grand transition to full open access in February 2024. A move that aligns with ACM’s broader commitment to making its entire corpus of work freely available. One might almost call it altruistic, if one were feeling particularly charitable.

According to the sacred texts of the Journal Citation Reports , the journal boasts a 2023 impact factor of 11.1. A number that speaks volumes, or at least whispers politely.