Computing & Data
Computer Science Research: Venues, Funders and Research Software
Computer science research is organised around conferences more than most fields. Peer-reviewed conference papers carry the weight that journal articles carry elsewhere, and a researcher's record is read through the venues where the work appeared. The Association for Computing Machinery, founded on 15 September 1947 and reporting nearly 110,000 members in 2024, runs most of its activity through 38 Special Interest Groups. The IEEE Computer Society, the USENIX Association and the Computing Research Association, a nonprofit of roughly 300 member organisations that was founded in 1972, complete the main society landscape.
Bibliographic records come from dblp, a computer science bibliography begun in 1993 at the University of Trier and run by Schloss Dagstuhl since November 2018. Preprints go to the computer science archive of arXiv, open since January 1993, and many venues run reviewing on OpenReview. Departmental comparisons draw on CSRankings, which scores faculty publications at selected venues using dblp data, and on the CORE portal, which grades conferences A*, A, B or C.
Research software and artifacts are part of the scholarly record. Software Heritage archives public source code and gives each item a SoftWare Hash IDentifier, CITATION.cff and CodeMeta describe software for citation, and many conferences run artifact evaluation. In the United States the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, the Department of Energy's Advanced Scientific Computing Research programme and DARPA are the main federal funders. The twelve specialisations linked from this hub cover the sub-fields in turn.
New to the field? What is Computer Science? →
Reviewed 5 November 2026 by CASRAI Editorial Board
- Association for Computing Machinery (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
- Journal of the ACM (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
- IEEE Computer Society(read 5 November 2026)
- Computing Research Association(read 5 November 2026)
- USENIX (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
- NSF CISE(read 5 November 2026)
- DOE ASCR(read 5 November 2026)
- DARPA about(read 5 November 2026)
- Software Heritage (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
- CSRankings(read 5 November 2026)
- CORE Conference Portal(read 5 November 2026)
- Citation File Format(read 5 November 2026)
- CodeMeta(read 5 November 2026)
- Artifact Evaluation(read 5 November 2026)
- arXiv cs archive(read 5 November 2026)
- DBLP (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
- OpenReview(read 5 November 2026)
- LIPIcs (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
Field at a glance
Journals
- Journal of the ACM
- ACM peer-reviewed journal established in 1954, covering computer science in general and especially theoretical aspects; bimonthly with a hybrid open access model.Website ↗
- LIPIcs (Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics)
- Open access conference proceedings series from computer science conferences, published by Schloss Dagstuhl under Dagstuhl Publishing.Website ↗
Societies
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
- Founded 15 September 1947; nearly 110,000 members as of 2024; most activity runs through 38 Special Interest Groups; ACM Digital Library launched October 1997.Website ↗
- IEEE Computer Society
- Society for computer scientists and engineers; its Digital Library covers magazines, journals and conference proceedings, and it links to standards.Website ↗
- Computing Research Association (CRA)
- Nonprofit of about 300 North American member organisations, founded 1972 as the Computer Science Board; works on research policy, data and advocacy.Website ↗
- USENIX Association
- Nonprofit founded 1975 supporting advanced computing systems research; runs OSDI, NSDI, FAST and USENIX Security, open access since 2008.Website ↗
Funders and programmes
- NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)
- Funds computing research through six areas, including Computing and AI Foundations, Software and Systems Foundations and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
- Office of Science programme for supercomputing, advanced networking, computer science and applied mathematics; access routes include INCITE and the ALCC.Website ↗
- DARPA
- US defense research agency created in 1957 with six technical offices, one of them the Information Processing Techniques Office.Website ↗
Archives, facilities and data
- Software Heritage
- Non-profit archive that crawls code hosts and package archives and assigns each artifact a SoftWare Hash IDentifier (SWHID); announced 30 June 2016.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- CSRankings
- Metrics-based ranking of computer science institutions by faculty publications at selected venues in AI, Systems, Theory and interdisciplinary areas, using dblp data.Website ↗
- CORE Conference Portal
- Computing conference ranking with tiers A*, A, B and C; CORE journal rankings were discontinued in 2022.Website ↗
Standards and formats
- Citation File Format (CITATION.cff)
- Plain text file in a repository root giving citation data for software and datasets; read by GitHub, Zenodo and Zotero.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- CodeMeta
- Shared minimal metadata vocabulary for software, built on Schema.org terms and JSON-LD and founded in 2016.Website ↗
- Artifact evaluation
- Conference process in which reviewers assess the software and data behind accepted papers; the site indexes guidelines and review process pages.Website ↗ · Our guide →
Preprints and indexes
- arXiv computer science archive
- Computer science section of arXiv since January 1993, with about forty subject classes from cs.AI to cs.SY.Website ↗ · Our guide →
- dblp computer science bibliography
- Began in 1993 at the University of Trier; a branch of Schloss Dagstuhl since November 2018; over 5.4 million records by December 2020.Website ↗
- OpenReview
- Open peer review platform with configurable openness, reviewer matching and a REST API; created at UMass Amherst.Website ↗
63 pages across 10 topic areas
Research Tools & Software
- Amazon Braket: Quantum Computing Research Guide
A practical guide to Amazon Braket: installing the Python SDK, building quantum circuits, executing local simulations, and running tasks on quantum ha…
- ASPLOS: What the Conference Is and Who Sponsors It
ASPLOS explained: what the architecture, languages and operating systems conference covers, its three ACM SIG sponsors, and recent editions.…
- Cancelling Slurm Jobs with scancel
How to cancel Slurm jobs with scancel: by job ID, by job array (whole array vs. one task index), and by username, plus what differs between cancelling…
- Cirq: Google’s Python Library for Quantum Circuits
Install Cirq (Python 3.11+), run a Bell-state circuit, read the integer histogram keys, and record the version for reproducible quantum research.…
- CloudLab Testbed: What It Is and How to Start an Experiment
CloudLab is an NSF-funded research testbed. See what it is used for, how to get an account, and the exact steps to launch and extend a first experimen…
- Computational Complexity: Python Research Guide
Measure computational complexity in Python using big-o. Fit asymptotic Big-O models, evaluate empirical runtime scaling, and troubleshoot noisy benchm…
- Computational Geometry: Python Research Guide
Master computational geometry in Python research with SciPy spatial algorithms: compute convex hulls, Delaunay triangulations, and KDTree spatial quer…
- Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS): NIST Framework and Funding
Cyber-physical systems (CPS) defined using NIST SP 1500-201, with its facets and aspects and the NSF CPS funding program.…
- Formal Methods: Model Checking Research Guide
Formal methods research guide covering Promela modeling, Spin model checking, invariant verification, and counterexample diagnosis for concurrent syst…
- Formal Verification: SMT & Software Proof Guide
A research guide to formal verification using Z3: proving safety invariants, extracting counterexamples, SMT-LIB setup, and free verification tools.…
- HDF5 vs Zarr vs Parquet: Choosing a Format for Scientific and Tabular DataComparison
A comparison of HDF5, Zarr, and Parquet for large scientific and tabular datasets, covering array vs. columnar data, local vs. cloud object storage, a…
- HotNets: ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks Explained
HotNets is the ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks: 6-page blind-reviewed papers, format rules, 2025 dates and where to find each year's program.…
- How to Request an NSF ACCESS Compute Allocation
A step-by-step walkthrough of requesting an NSF ACCESS supercomputing allocation: choosing Explore, Discover, Accelerate, or Maximize, what the reques…
- IBM Quantum Platform: Access, Hardware and Qiskit Runtime Guide
Guide to IBM Quantum Platform access tiers, QPUs, Qiskit Runtime execution modes, and job configuration for computational research.…
- import scipy as sp: What the Alias Does and How to Import Submodules
What import scipy as sp does, what the SciPy docs recommend instead, and how to fix the missing-submodule AttributeError.…
- Instruction Set Architecture in Research
An instruction set architecture defines the hardware-software boundary. Learn how researchers simulate, trace, and benchmark ISAs using Spike and gem5…
- Kitware: Open-Source Scientific Computing Guide
A practical guide to Kitware open-source scientific computing software, covering repository setup, VTK visualization pipelines, and HPC data analysis.…
- Lean 4: What It Is, How to Install It and Start a Project
What Lean 4 is, how to install it from the official sources, and the lake commands for a first project, with or without Mathlib.…
- MLIR (Multi-Level Intermediate Representation): What It Is and How to Build It
MLIR is LLVM's Multi-Level Intermediate Representation framework: what it is, how it differs from LLVM, and how to build and test it.…
- OpenReview API: Python Client Guide
A practical guide to installing and querying the OpenReview API using the openreview-py Python client for computer science peer review and metadata an…
- ParaView: Scientific Visualization and HPC Guide
Master ParaView for scientific visualization: explore data formats, client-server HPC rendering with pvserver, Python workflows, and citation guidelin…
- Quantum Algorithm: Types, Speedups and a Grover Example in Qiskit
Quantum algorithm types and speedup labels, plus a tested Grover search in Qiskit with how to read the output and report it in a paper.…
- Quantum Circuit: Build, Draw and Read One in Qiskit and PennyLane
How to build, draw and read a quantum circuit in Qiskit and PennyLane, including how each framework handles measurement.…
- Requesting a GPU in a Slurm Batch Job
How to request GPUs in a Slurm batch job with --gres=gpu:N, --gpus=N, and the newer --gpus-per-task/--gpus-per-node forms, target a specific GPU type,…
- Slurm Job Arrays: Running Hundreds of Similar Jobs Without a Submit Loop
A practical guide to Slurm job arrays: --array syntax, using SLURM_ARRAY_TASK_ID to index per-task input, why arrays beat a submit loop, and array-spe…
- Slurm Priority and Fairshare: Why Your Job Is Waiting in the Queue
Why a submitted Slurm job doesn't start immediately: how the multifactor priority plugin scores fairshare, job age, job size, partition and QOS, and h…
- Slurm vs LSF vs PBS: Job Scheduler Command ReferenceComparison
A command-by-command translation between Slurm (sbatch/srun/squeue), IBM Spectrum LSF (bsub/bjobs), and PBS/PBS Pro/OpenPBS (qsub/qstat) for researche…
- SOSP: ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles Guide
What SOSP is, its scope, the 2025 submission and double-blind review rules, artifact evaluation, and how to find and cite SOSP papers.…
- Static Analysis of Source Code: Pylint and Cppcheck Guide
How to run free static analysis on Python and C/C++ research code with Pylint and Cppcheck, read the output, and understand the limits OWASP lists.…
- TLA+ (Temporal Logic of Actions): Specification Language and TLC Guide
TLA+ (Temporal Logic of Actions) is a formal specification language. See what a spec contains, how to run the TLC model checker, and how to learn it.…
- What Is Overleaf? A Beginner's Guide to the Online LaTeX Editor
What Overleaf is, why researchers use it instead of Word for equation-heavy and citation-heavy manuscripts, getting started without knowing LaTeX, jou…
- Zephyr RTOS: What It Is, How to Install It and Run Your First Build
What Zephyr RTOS is, how to install it from the official guide, build and flash the Blinky sample, and fix common west errors.…
Research Methods & Statistics
- ACM vs IEEE: Which Society Fits Your Research?Comparison
A detailed comparison between ACM and IEEE, evaluating computing theory, hardware engineering, conference indexing, digital libraries, and membership.…
- Computer Science vs Data Science: Key DifferencesComparison
Computer science studies computation, algorithms and systems; data science extracts knowledge from data. Compared on methods, math, training, funding…
- Computer Science vs Software Engineering: What Is the Difference?Comparison
Computer science studies computation and its theory; software engineering applies it to build and maintain reliable software. How they differ on metho…
- Think-Aloud Protocols: Concurrent vs. Retrospective, and How to Code Them
Concurrent think-aloud captures the process as it happens but risks altering it; retrospective think-aloud leaves the task undisturbed but risks memor…
- What Is Computer Science? Research Areas, Funding, and Career Paths
What computer science studies, its major branches, who funds the research (NSF, DARPA, DOE, NIH), core research methods, and typical career and PhD pa…
- What Is Cryptography? Methods, Standards, and Research Context
Cryptography is the mathematics of protecting information against adversaries. This guide covers symmetric and public-key methods, hashing, signatures…
- What Is Human-Computer Interaction? Research Areas, Methods, and Career Paths
A thorough answer to "what is human-computer interaction" - what HCI studies, its subfields, usability and user-research methods, human-subjects (IRB)…
- What Is Software Engineering? Research Software, Reproducibility, and Citation
A thorough answer to "what is software engineering": its subfields, methods and history, plus research software engineers, reproducibility, software c…
Scholarly Publishing
- ACM CCS Concepts: Classification Guide for Authors and acmart Submissions
A practical guide to the ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) concepts: how to select categories, assign significance weights, and implement LaTe…
- arXiv Computer Science: Archive and Research Guide
Explore arXiv Computer Science (CoRR), from its 40 subject categories and search interface to moderation policies and computer science preprint workfl…
- CRA Taulbee Survey: Academic Computing Guide
The CRA Taulbee Survey provides the definitive statistical benchmark for North American doctoral computing departments, tracking faculty salaries, gra…
- CSRankings: Methodology, Metrics and Guide
An in-depth guide to CSRankings methodology, examining how DBLP conference indexing, fractional authorship, and geometric mean normalization measure c…
- Dagstuhl
Explore Schloss Dagstuhl informatics seminars, proposal guidelines via DOSA, invitation workflows, and open-access conference publishing through LIPIc…
- Springer LNCS: Indexing, Proceedings Guidelines, and LaTeX Template Guide
A comprehensive guide to Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS): Scopus and Web of Science CPCI indexing, impact factor status, and llncs…
- USENIX: The Advanced Computing Systems Association & Open Proceedings
An operational guide to USENIX: The Advanced Computing Systems Association, covering its open-access proceedings archive, flagship symposia, and resea…
Grants Management & Research Funding
- ACM Code of Ethics: Governance, Principles, and Research Compliance
An operational overview of the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, outlining its four core sections, compliance duties, and applications in c…
- ACM Turing Award: Criteria, Prize and Nominations
An authoritative guide to the ACM A.M. Turing Award, detailing nomination requirements, eligibility criteria, the $1,000,000 Google-supported prize, a…
- DARPA I2O: Funding, Thrusts, and How to Apply
A complete guide to DARPA I2O (Information Innovation Office, now IPTO), covering core research thrusts, BAA solicitation cycles, and university engag…
- NSF ACCESS: National HPC Allocation vs. Campus Recharge Models
How NSF’s ACCESS program allocates national supercomputing resources through merit-reviewed credit tiers, and how this differs from a campus HPC recha…
- NSF CISE Core Programs Guide
The NSF CISE Core Programs provide foundational research awards across computer and information science through solicitation NSF 25-543 (Future CoRe),…
- Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing: Programs, Fellowships and How to Apply
What the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing offers, who can apply, and how visitor and program routes work.…
Research Data Management
- Apptainer vs Docker: Container Runtime Comparison for HPC ResearchComparison
Apptainer and Docker solve different problems: Apptainer is rootless-by-design for shared HPC clusters, Docker is daemon-based for single-user dev and…
- Research Software Engineer (RSE): Role Definition and Research-Computing Administration
What a Research Software Engineer (RSE) is, how the role differs from IT/HPC and data-science staff, and how research-computing administrators structu…
- Writing a Software Management Plan
A software management plan (SMP) template built on what NSF, EPSRC, Dutch and German funders, and Horizon Europe actually require -- licensing compati…
Research Information & Identifiers
- InCommon Explained: The US Research and Education Identity Federation
InCommon is the identity federation operated by Internet2 that lets a US researcher's campus login work at thousands of external services. This guide…
- KENET: Kenya's Research and Education Network (NREN) Explained
What KENET (Kenya's National Research and Education Network) is, how its membership and connectivity services work, how it runs eduroam, and how NRENs…
- Shibboleth Single Sign-On: How Federated SAML Authentication Works
Shibboleth is the open-source SAML software behind "Login via your institution" -- how Identity Provider and Service Provider roles work, how InCommon…
CRediT & Authorship
- Authorship Credit in Computer Science: Conference Papers vs. Journal Papers
Computer science treats peer-reviewed conference papers as primary, career-relevant authorship credit in many subfields, unlike most other research fi…
Research Integrity & Compliance
- Quantum Computing Export Controls: Deemed Exports and Foreign-National Access Rules for University Quantum Research
Quantum computing hardware, components, software, and technology were newly captured by US export controls in 2024. This guide walks through what that…
Scholarly Writing
- ACM Reference Format
Learn how to format ACM references and citations for journals, conference proceedings, and books using official ACM author styles and BibTeX templates…
Technology Transfer & Innovation
- Open Source Software Licensing in University Technology Transfer
How university technology transfer offices decide whether to open-source research software or pursue traditional licensing, what MIT, Apache 2.0, and…
Key terms
- ACM Artifact Review and Badging
- ACM Computing Surveys: Impact Factor & Metrics
- Code review (research software)
- CodeMeta
- Communications of the ACM (CACM) Journal Impact Factor
- Container image (Docker/Singularity/Apptainer)
- FAIR4RS (FAIR Principles for Research Software)
- FORCE11 Software Citation Principles
- JOSS (Journal of Open Source Software)
- Journal of the ACM
- Linked Data Fragments
- NSF CISE (Computer and Information Science and Engineering)
- Open Source Software
- RDF triple store
- Software management plan (SMP)
- SPARQL endpoint
