How to Contribute to Ubiquity

Ubiquity aims to foster critical discussion and innovative thought among computing professionals and help them think about the future. This site is a peer-reviewed magazine devoted to the future of computing and the people who are creating it. All contributions must have an orientation toward the future of computing.

You can contribute to Ubiquity in numerous ways: submit blogs (short pieces with a grounded opinion by the author), commentaries (peer-reviewed essays that seeks to explain or enlighten), tutorials (simplifying explanations something complex emerging technology), interviews, videos, and symposia proposals. If you would like to blog for Ubiquity, send us a proposal or draft at blog@ubiquity.acm.org. For all other authors, we strongly encourage you to submit a pitch first.

Perhaps you have an interesting idea, but are not sure how to put pen to paper? Start with a pitch. If a Ubiquity senior editor likes your pitch, that editor will work with you to shape your article. Editors will seek additional review of your drafts. When done the editor can accept your article for publication. Acceptance of a pitch starts the writing and editing process, but does not guarantee that your article will be automatically accepted.

Without making a pitch, you can submit an article directly to the Manuscript Central system for Ubiquity. Follow the author submission protocol there. Ubiquity articles are normally limited to 2,500 words, although the editors will consider longer items. We strongly encourage you to include at least one graphic or image in your contribution.

For video content, you should not submit the video file, but instead provide a link to the existing video.

For blog posts, follow the guidelines.

Editors will review all contributions. We may edit for length, grammar, and style.

We do not accept research papers; use ACM journals and conferences for such papers.

Authors submitting an article to Ubiquity automatically agree to assign a limited license to ACM if and when the article is accepted for publication. This license allows ACM to publish an article in Ubiquity and to include articles other than blogs in the ACM Digital Library.

Generative AI tools and technologies, such as ChatGPT, may not be listed as authors of an ACM published work. The use of generative AI tools and technologies to create content is permitted but must be fully disclosed in the work. For example, the authors could include the following statement in the Acknowledgements section of the work: ChatGPT was utilized to generate sections of this Work, including text, tables, graphs, code, data, citations, etc.). If you are uncertain about the need to disclose the use of a particular tool, err on the side of caution, and include a disclosure in the acknowledgements section of the work.

Basic word processing systems that recommend and insert replacement text, perform spelling or grammar checks and corrections, or systems that do language translations are to be considered exceptions to this disclosure requirement and are generally permitted and need not be disclosed in the work. As the line between Generative AI tools and basic word processing systems like MS-Word or Grammarly becomes blurred, this Policy will be updated.

For more on ACM's Policy on Authorship, please visit: https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship.

As a published ACM author, 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.