Last Updated: December 2024
ACM FAccT encourages authors to submit their best work for inclusion in the conference proceedings, welcoming papers in all subject areas listed in the Call For Papers (CFP). Submissions are assessed through a rigorous, anonymous reviewing process. This guide should be read by all authors wishing to submit to the conference. It provides details of the reviewing process, applicable policies, formatting instructions, and responses to frequently asked questions. For specific deadlines, please refer to the CFP.
Papers will be evaluated based on scholarly criteria in their designated area, including
More information on these criteria can be found in the Review Form.
Authors are required to register their papers through the submission site by submitting a tentative title and abstract and specifying their paper's focus area(s) by the Abstract Submission Deadline. This process will enable the Program Chairs to better anticipate the submission load and to make necessary adjustments to the program committee. Authors who do not register their submission by the Abstract Submission Deadline will be unable to submit their paper to FAccT.
Authors can change their preliminary titles, abstracts, and focus areas up until the Paper Submission Deadline, by which full papers must be submitted. However, the preliminary title and abstract should be representative of the work that is ultimately submitted, and the registered list of authors cannot be modified. Program Chairs reserve the right to delete submissions with "placeholder" titles and abstracts (e.g., "TBA" or nothing) after the Abstract Submission Deadline.
After submission, papers are assigned to Reviewers with expertise in relevant areas. Each paper is also assigned to an Area Chair (AC) who will oversee the review process for the paper. Please refer to the Reviewer Guide and Review Form for further information on how Reviewers evaluate submissions and to the AC Guide and AC Review Form for further information on how ACs summarize reviews and form their own evaluations. After the initial reviewing period, these reviews will be shared with authors and there will be a short rebuttal period to allow the authors to raise any critical concerns they have with the reviews, clarify misunderstandings, and signpost intended minor edits. Author responses and subsequent discussion among the reviewers will be incorporated by ACs in their final recommendations, which are then ratified by the Program Chairs.
FAccT uses a mutually anonymous review process. Authors must omit their names and affiliations from submissions, and avoid obvious identifying statements. For instance, citations to prior work from the authors should be made in the third person. This policy also applies to links to external sources, such as online material and code repositories, which should not contain identifying information. Moreover, Endmatter Sections which could contain identifying information (such as Author Contributions, Acknowledgements, Competing Interests, and Positionality Statement) should not be included at submission time. Submissions that do not comply with this policy may be rejected without review. FAccT maintains the confidentiality of submitted material. Upon acceptance, the titles, authorship, and abstracts of accepted papers will be released.
Note that submitting research for approval by authors’ institutional ethics review body (IRB) may be necessary in some cases, but by itself may not be sufficient to address all ethical concerns. In cases where the Program Chairs have concerns about the ethics of the work in a submission, the Program Chairs will consider the ethical soundness and justification of the submission, just as its technical soundness is considered. The Program Chairs will take a broad view of what constitutes an ethical concern; see the Raising Ethical Concerns section of the Reviewer Guide. You may be contacted during the review process if the Program Chairs have queries regarding ethical considerations.
The reviewing process proceeds linearly from submission to final decision over several months, as follows:
Papers that violate the following guidelines on length and formatting may be rejected without review.
We will use the ACM TAPS workflow for formatting manuscripts, described here. Options and templates are available for both Microsoft Word and LaTeX users.
If using LaTeX, please use the template given in sample-manuscript.tex when downloading the latest version of the ACM LaTeX documents. Please set the anonymous option for review. Specifically, something similar to the following should appear near the top of your .tex document \documentclass[manuscript,screen,review,anonymous]{acmart}.
If the paper is accepted, authors will have to reformat their paper in the ACM format. Authors are encouraged to refer to the CHI Guide to an Accessible Submission for pointers on how to make their submission accessible.
Submitted papers must be no longer than 14 pages (including all figures and tables) in single-column format, plus unlimited pages for references. References should be in the ACM Reference Format.
An extra (15th) page is permitted for authors who wish to include endmatter statements on the last page of the paper (and this extra page can only be used for these statements). See the section on Endmatter Sections below for further details on which endmatter elements can be included already at the submission stage and which endmatter elements should only be included in the camera-ready submissions. Note that these guidelines differ slightly from those used in 2024, so read them carefully.
Appendices of any length are allowed. Authors should include the appendix within the same PDF, submitting only one document, placing it at the end of the submission. The main paper should be self-contained and should be reviewable without reference to any information in the appendix. Reviewers are not obligated to review the appendix.
Authors of accepted papers will be given the opportunity to make final edits to the paper. Accepted papers are allowed an additional page for content to address feedback raised by Reviewers. Final versions of papers must meet the ACM formatting requirements for camera-ready submissions and should be uploaded by the Camera-ready Deadline. Papers will be included in the ACM Digital library and appear on the FAccT website.
By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM's new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.
Submitted papers are held to a high standard of ethical practice. The ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct provides the basis upon which ethical considerations are made. The code of ethics comprises seven principles:
Authors are encouraged to reflect on how these principles apply to their work.
Submitted papers will be flagged to the Program Chairs if Reviewers or ACs believe that they need further consideration in areas listed above, and specifically: improper treatment of human subjects or data annotators, including issues to do with fair pay; use of unethically collected datasets, datasets that have been retracted, or datasets not allowed to be used in the research context; potential negative downstream harms that require additional scrutiny or mitigation; environmental concerns; rights concerns; privacy concerns; safety or security concerns; legal concerns, including around copyright; dangerous materials and practices; warfare; discrimination, bias, and fairness issues; deception or harassment; and other topics of concern. See the Reviewer Guide for more on what happens when a paper is flagged for ethical concerns.
Authors are encouraged to proactively address any such concerns directly in their paper (for instance, in an ethical impacts statement at the end of the paper).
Authors should refer to the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship and use of large language models (LLMs), and the associated SIGCHI blog post.
You may not submit papers that are identical, or substantially similar to papers that are currently under review at another peer-reviewed conference or journal, have been previously published, or have been accepted for publication. Such submissions violate our concurrent submission policy and will be removed from submission. There are three main exceptions to this rule:
Use of preprints is allowed. See the section on Self-Archiving and Posting Rights in the ACM Publication Rights & Licensing Policy.
For research involving human participants, please see the 2021 ACM publications policy on research involving humans.
For research involving experimental work, FAccT supports the role and use of pre-registration of experiments and analyses. By pre-registration, we refer to the research practice of registering the types of experiment and methods without results before experimental work is done, and having this experimental protocol be logged. For authors who have pre-registered their work, please provide information on how to access the pre-registration outline if an anonymous version is available. Do not provide a link to any pre-registration material that would identify the authors as this is considered a violation of the anonymity policy. Further information on pre-registration and examples of registration websites can be found at The Center for Open Science and PLOS.
FAccT offers authors the choice of archival and non-archival paper submissions:
Authors must choose whether they are making an archival or non-archival submission at the time the paper is registered (at the abstract submission deadline). Changes to this submission type are not possible afterwards.
All submissions will have the same page length requirements and be judged by the same quality standards, regardless of whether the authors choose the archival or non-archival option. Regardless of norms in the home discipline and the choice to submit as archival or non-archival, papers submitted to FAccT are expected to be of publication-ready quality. For fields that typically publish in journals, submissions should be of the quality that would warrant a journal submission but may be shorter due to different page constraints. Reviewers will not be told whether submissions under review are archival, to avoid influencing their evaluations.
Authors of all accepted papers must present their work at the FAccT conference, regardless of whether their paper is archival or non-archival.
Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.
Authors may include any or all of the following endmatter sections at the end of the paper if applicable: author contributions, acknowledgements, conflicts of interest, ethical considerations statement, adverse impacts statement, and positionality statement. These statements can be added on their own page in the paper and do not count towards the page limit. These sections are not meant for the discussion of limitations of your methodology, which should be addressed in the main body of the paper. Please note that some of these sections should not be included in the anonymous submission. In particular, this pertains to: Author Contributions, Acknowledgements, Competing Interests, and Positionality Statement.
Should not be included in the anonymous submission
A statement that summarizes the different contributions of each of the authors to the paper. There are many approaches to contribution statements, and authors can choose an approach they prefer, e.g., CRediT.
Should not be included in the anonymous submission
A short statement that often recognizes sources of funding/funders or key resources that were provided and enabled this particular research and paper. These statements also acknowledge people who supported the research, but have not made contributions that meet the standard for authorship.
Should not be included in the anonymous submission
A statement that explicitly notes sources of funding generally for authors, and notes any dual affiliations or other outside interests for transparency.
Should not be included in the anonymous submission
A short statement that summarizes how the background and experiences of the authors inform or shape the work.
Can be included at submission time
This statement is a description of the ethical concerns that authors mitigated while conducting the work. Authors should describe the ethical challenges they faced in their submission and how they addressed such challenges. In particular, submissions that (1) describe experiments with users and/or deployed systems (e.g., websites or apps), or (2) rely on sensitive user data (e.g., social network information) must adhere to precepts of ethical research and community norms. These include compliance with applicable laws and applicable professional ethical codes; respect for privacy; secure storage of sensitive data; voluntary and informed consent when appropriate; avoiding deceptive practices when not essential; beneficence and non-maleficence (maximizing the benefits to an individual or society while minimizing harm to the individual); risk mitigation; and post-hoc disclosure of audits. See also the section on Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct above.
Can be included at submission time
This statement is a reflection on the adverse or unintended impact the work might have once published.
Am I able to change the author list after submission?
It is not possible to change the author list after the abstract submission deadline. Authors should be clear on the contributions of those who submit and have permission from all the authors to submit the paper.
Attending the conference.
Details of the conference, including information on visas, registration, accommodation, financial aid, and more will be available on the conference website. All accepted papers are expected to have at least one author that attends the conference in order for the paper to appear in the proceedings. Adjustments can be made for necessary and unforeseen circumstances. Contact the General Chairs in such cases for guidance.
Can I submit a paper that has already been accepted or published at a journal to the non-archival track?
As outlined in exception 3 in the Concurrent and Dual Submission Policy described above, authors may submit papers that are currently under review at a journal or that they plan to submit to a journal to the non-archival track. However, authors may not submit papers to this track if they have already been accepted or published in a journal as of the submission deadline.
Can I submit a paper to the non-archival track if I plan to submit it to another archival conference?
No. The non-archival track is intended for authors from fields that typically publish in journals.
Does the appendix count towards the page limit?
No. You may include an appendix of any length in your submission. However, reviewers are not obligated to read or review the appendix.
Can I remove the copyright and bottom-page information from the FAccT LaTeX template?
Yes, this is allowed for the initial paper submission.
Are appeals to decisions possible?
Decisions from the Program Chairs are final and no appeals are possible. Where there are concerns of misconduct, the Program Chairs welcome reports to be submitted to them for full investigation and assessment.
How are the best paper awards selected?
FAccT awards several best paper awards. These are selected by a review panel, using nominations and input from Reviewers, Area Chairs, and the Program Chairs.