Publishing – or How to get Out of Grad School

Publishing – or How to get Out of Grad School Henning Schulzrinne Dept. of Computer Science Columbia University

Publications • Different kinds of publications • Think like a reviewer • Finding the right conference • Advertising your work • Paper types • What if my paper is rejected?

Publication types • Technical reports • Workshops • Conferences • Magazines • (“Archival”) Journals • RFCs

Finding out about conferences • CFP = call for papers • Finding out about conferences • http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~almeroth/conf/stats/ • TCCC announcement list (subscribe!) • Wenyu Jiang’s conference list

Technical Reports • CS, IBM and BL TR • avoids being “scooped” • present additional details (simulation results, proofs, implementation details) • Can be used to advertise on mailing lists – read more often than some conference papers

Workshops • Two kinds: • invited (Dagstuhl) • topic-focused (“Internet Measurements”, NANOG) • Smaller, more focused than conferences • May not have formal proceedings, just copies of slides • Often, only once or twice, but some for years (ComSoc) • Selectivity varies – from 100% to 10% • Some events are called workshop, but are really conferences (NOSSDAV, IWQoS)

Conferences • Hundreds a year • Traditional: ICC, Globecom • Semi-traditional: Infocom, SIGCOMM, ICNP, Sigmetrics, Usenix, SOSP, … • Newer: WWW, NOSSDAV, IWQoS, SAINT, Mobicom, Mobihoc, … • Submission size: 5-10 pages

Conferences • Some have short submissions (“extended abstract”) and longer accepted papers • Some are effectively the same length (Infocom) • Few have long submissions and shorter final papers

Conference reviews • Either technical program committee (TPC) or TPC + external reviewers • Reviews • blind (most IEEE conferences): author doesn’t know reviewer, but reviewer knows author identity • double-blind (ACM): only the chair knows the author identities

Finding the right conference • Appropriate conference • layer/topic area • style (analysis, system) • selectivity • location (Australia vs. NY)

Traveling to conferences • Many larger conferences have student travel grants • often for authors • sometimes for non-authors (SIGCOMM)

Magazines • Examples: • IEEE Network Magazine • IEEE Communications Magazine • IEEE Personal Communications • IEEE Multimedia Magazine • Large circulation -> topics of broad interest • Written for non-specialist (30,000 readers!) • Originality not always most important

Journals • Every PhD thesis should result in at least one journal publication • Archival – most libraries have them and keep them forever • Long review cycle • Selectivity varies greatly – can be less selective than some conferences • Often, given second chance – “resubmit with major changes”

Journals • Issued principally by • Societies • ACM • IEEE • Commercial publishers • Springer Verlag • Kluwer • North Holland

Journals • Examples • IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking • Journal on Selected Areas in Communications • Computer Communications Review • ACM Multimedia • Computer Networks • Journal of High Speed Networks • Journal of Communications and Networks • …

RFCs – Internet Standards Documents • RFCs are not papers (and vice versa) • Can take a while, particularly for standards-track documents • Start with submitting Internet Drafts – but most Internet drafts never make it to RFC • Specification vs. description

RFCs • Precision vs. novelty and performance • “How does it work” vs. “how is this better than existing work” • Good way to get impact • Good for industrial job interviews

Ways to advertise your work • Technical reports • Put link and abstract on web page (search engines!) • Relevant mailing lists (e.g., end2end) • Send pointer to authors of work that is closely related • arXiv for tech reports

Finding related work • netbib • citeseer • Google • web pages of well-known network research groups • Digital Library, IEEEXplore

Types of papers - content • Measurement • measure performance of real systems • test bed or real Internet • careful statistics – how representative is your data? • Analysis of existing algorithm • TCP, FDDI, DQDB, RED, … - not some obscure protocol • simulation or analysis • bad protocols are good news for authors…

Types of papers, cont’d. • System description • implement interesting system • describe it in sufficient detail • what’s new and interesting? • prototype, not industrial product • New algorithm or protocol • switching, routing, scheduling, … • performance evaluation • highest risk/reward • don’t describe bit fields

Think like a reviewer • Reviewers are volunteers • Reviewers are not English editors • Abstract and title have to ensure proper routing of paper (theory vs. systems) • Reviewers get mad if their work is not cited • Clearly state what your contribution is (and state other things in future work)

Think like a reviewer • Sufficient detail to evaluate, but not “used gcc 1.2.3 on a SPARC Ultra 10 called snoopy to simulate” • Repeat main results in introduction and summary • Very carefully distinguish from prior work • Avoid overloading one paper (hard!)

Paper submission • Technical report (and RFCs) do no harm • Basic rule: cannot submit same material to two venues simultaneously (including conference and journal) • Don’t explore LPU • Conference paper = refined(workshop paper + detail) • Journal paper = refined( conference papers)

What if a paper is rejected? • Don’t jump off the GWB - it happens to everyone • If not, you’re not submitting to the right conferences • No point complaining if the reviews are superficial – decisions are effectively final (except for discoveries of plagiarism, etc.) • Publish as tech report immediately (after taking reviews into consideration)

Publishing – or How to get Out of Grad School