thedixitjain IMC Artifact Evaluation
Use this for IMC's artifact and dataset story. Unlike venues with a separate badge-granting committee, IMC's mechanism is centered on an availability declaration at submission plus shepherding after acceptance to ensure the promised data, code, or platform actually becomes available. The venue-defining incentive is the Community Contribution Award, which exists to honor a released dataset, tool, or open platform. Whether IMC also awards formal ACM reproducibility badges in a given edition is 待核实 — confirm on the current call.
Two artifacts, two audiences
- Review artifact (at submission): anonymized for the reviewers — no owner strings, testbed or AS identifiers, probe-account IDs, cluster paths, or lab-domain links. It backs the paper's claims during double-blind review.
- Public release (after acceptance): de-anonymized, licensed, permanently archived. This is what the shepherd checks, what the camera-ready cites, and what the Community Contribution Award evaluates.
The availability declaration, delivered
At submission you declared full / partial / none. After acceptance, the shepherd holds you to it:
| Declared | What the shepherd expects | Common failure caught |
|---|---|---|
| Full | The dataset/tool/platform, publicly retrievable and documented | Link promised, never published; broken archive |
| Partial | The shareable subset + a stated reason for the rest | "Partial" used to avoid work; unclear what is shared |
| None | A specific, legitimate justification (proprietary/privacy/legal) | Vague "on request"; no reason given |
"Available on request" is not availability. If law or privacy blocks release, say precisely why and, where possible, release a derived/aggregated safe version.
What a strong measurement dataset release contains
[Data] the measured dataset itself (or a documented, privacy-safe derivative)
[Schema] a documented schema/dictionary: every field, unit, and its meaning
[Provenance] vantage points (locations, ASes, probe types), measurement dates and durations,
target lists with capture dates, tool versions, sampling and rate limits
[Method] the collection scripts/tooling and how to re-run the *method* (data will differ)
[Ethics] the privacy/anonymization applied to the release; disclosure status
[License] an explicit open license (e.g., CC-BY for data, OSI license for code)
[Archive] a DOI-issuing repository (Zenodo, figshare, Software Heritage) or a durable
community archive — not a personal homepage
Reproducibility for a moving Internet
Measurement data cannot be re-collected identically — the Internet changes. So the release must make the captured data and its provenance the reproducible core, and the method re-runnable to produce new comparable data. Ship the analysis scripts that turn the released data into the paper's figures; a number in the PDF that no script regenerates from the released data is the contradiction a shepherd (and a reader) will flag.
Community Contribution Award eligibility
The award recognizes an outstanding dataset, source-code distribution, open platform, or service to the community. To be eligible, the data/code/tool must be publicly available and usable by the time of the camera-ready deadline — not "coming soon." Aim for it by making the release:
- Usable by a stranger: documented schema, a README, and a runnable example.
- Durable: a DOI and a maintenance/versioning note.
- Reusable: an open license and, for platforms, an access path others can actually use.
Worked vignette: releasing a longitudinal scan dataset
A paper contributes a two-year scan of a protocol's deployment. For a strong, award-eligible release: publish the per-scan records with a documented schema; include vantage-point and timing metadata for every scan; apply and document IP/host anonymization consistent with the Ethics section; ship the analysis notebooks that regenerate each figure from the released data; deposit in a DOI-issuing archive with a CC-BY license; and state honestly which raw captures cannot be shared for privacy reasons and what safe derivative replaces them.
Calibration
- Availability is judged at camera-ready time for the award and during shepherding for the accepted paper — plan the release before, not after, acceptance.
- Whether formal ACM badges are offered, and the exact shepherding process, vary by edition — confirm on the current call (待核实).
Output format
[Artifact role] anonymized review artifact / public release
[Declaration] full / partial / none (+ justification)
[Contents] <data/schema/provenance/method/ethics/license/archive>
[Reproducibility] scripts regenerate figures from released data? yes/no
[Award eligibility] public + usable by camera-ready? yes/no
[Fixes before release] <ordered list>
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → IMC-Skills/skills/imc-artifact-evaluation/SKILL.md