thedixitjain INFOCOM Submission
Run this audit before the EDAS deadline. INFOCOM is a large IEEE ComSoc flagship — on the
order of ~1,400-1,500 submissions per year — so mechanical non-compliance is caught at scale and
papers over the length limit are simply not reviewed. Every number below was read from the
INFOCOM 2026/2027 Call for Papers and Submission Guidelines on 2026-07-09 via search renderings of
the ieee-infocom.org URLs (see resources/official-source-map.md); treat them as a one-cycle
snapshot and reopen the live call first.
The two-step deadline (abstract, then paper)
INFOCOM separates the abstract/metadata registration from the full-paper upload, both on EDAS and both AoE:
- Abstract/metadata (INFOCOM 2026: 24 July 2025) locks title, all co-authors, and a ≤200-word abstract into EDAS. This metadata drives the automated review assignment, so it must reflect the real paper.
- Full paper (INFOCOM 2026: 31 July 2025; INFOCOM 2027: 31 July 2026) uploads the anonymized PDF. Miss the abstract step and EDAS will not accept the PDF later.
Register with the real title and abstract, not a placeholder — the assignment system matches your manuscript and abstract to TPC members' publications, and a vague abstract worsens your reviewer fit before a human ever reads the paper.
Format and page budget (hard)
- IEEEtran.cls version 1.8, unmodified, two-column:
\documentclass[10pt, conference, letterpaper]{IEEEtran}, 10-point Times, default margins and line spacing. This is the IEEE path, not ACM/USENIX — do not carry anacmartsingle-column habit over from a sibling venue. - Page budget: 10 pages maximum. The main text — including figures, tables, appendices, and everything other than references — must be no more than 9 pages; only references may use the 10th page. There is no separate supplementary or appendix channel at review time.
- Papers that violate the length limit are not reviewed — this is a mechanical, non-negotiable screen, not a soft preference. Recover space by editing, never by shrinking the font or margins.
Double-blind sweep
INFOCOM runs double-blind review: author identities are removed from the PDF title page, body, and PDF metadata. Because networking papers lean on testbeds, traces, and released tools, the leak surface is wide:
# Mechanical pass on the submission PDF before EDAS upload
pdfinfo paper.pdf | grep -Ei 'author|creator|producer' # scrub metadata identity
pdftotext paper.pdf - | grep -nEi 'github\.com/[a-z0-9-]+|our (prior|previous) (work|system)|acknowledg|this work was supported' | head
grep -nEi '\\thanks|\\author\{[^}]*[A-Za-z]' paper.tex | head # stray author/thanks blocks
The networking-specific leaks: a self-citation phrased as "our previous system," a testbed or university cluster name, a released-tool GitHub URL, a funding/acknowledgement line left in, and identifying dataset names. Cite your own prior work in the third person and defer acknowledgements and grant numbers to the camera-ready.
The five-paper cap
An individual may be listed as author or co-author on at most five papers submitted to a given INFOCOM; if exceeded, only the first five received before the deadline are reviewed. On a large group's submission sprint, confirm nobody crosses the cap before the abstract deadline — EDAS enforces it on receipt order, and a late sixth paper is silently dropped.
Desk-risk triage
| Finding at audit time | Severity | Real fix |
|---|---|---|
| Text (incl. appendices) over 9 pages, or total over 10 | Not-reviewed-grade | Cut or compress into the budget; references do not absorb body text |
Template altered (margins, shrunk font, wrong IEEEtran options) |
Named non-compliance | Recompile clean with the required preamble; recover space editorially |
| Author identity in PDF, metadata, or a "our system" self-citation | Double-blind violation | Re-anonymize; scrub PDF metadata; third-person self-citations |
| Abstract/metadata not registered by the earlier date | No submission slot exists | Nothing fixes this post-AoE — calendar it now |
| A coauthor already on five submissions | Sixth paper dropped | Rebalance authorship before the abstract deadline |
| Same work under review elsewhere | Dual-submission exposure | Withdraw one venue; verify the current concurrent-submission wording |
Final-week order of operations
- Freeze the body early; the system model and results cannot churn in the last days.
- Enter title/abstract/co-authors into EDAS before the abstract cutoff; confirm the ≤200-word abstract matches the paper.
- Compile with the exact IEEEtran preamble; measure the 9-page text boundary with references excluded, not the 10-page total.
- Run the mechanical double-blind checks on the final PDF, including
pdfinfometadata. - Fill every EDAS field — topics that match your evidence so the automated assignment routes you to the right TPC members, and every coauthor's affiliation — a day early.
- Re-download the uploaded PDF and read it cold to confirm it is the file you meant.
Reverify each cycle
- The exact abstract and full-paper dates and their AoE/ET cutoffs.
- The page-budget wording (the 9-of-10 text/references split) and which IEEEtran revision is required.
- The per-author paper cap (5 for 2026), dual-submission wording, and any AI-disclosure rule — all cycle-volatile.
Output format
[INFOCOM submission status] ready / blocked / needs work
[Registration] title/abstract/co-authors in EDAS by the abstract deadline? yes/no
[Format] IEEEtran preamble correct? text pages (excl. refs) / total pages
[Anonymity] clean / leaks: <where, incl. PDF metadata and self-citations>
[Author cap] any coauthor at 5 submissions already? yes/no
[Fix queue] <ordered, with owners and dates before the AoE cutoff>
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → INFOCOM-Skills/skills/infocom-submission/SKILL.md