ACM Computing Classification System explained

The ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) is a subject classification system for computing devised by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The system is comparable to the Mathematics Subject Classification (MSC) in scope, aims, and structure, being used by the various ACM journals to organize subjects by area.

History

The system has gone through seven revisions, the first version being published in 1964, and revised versions appearing in 1982, 1983, 1987, 1991, 1998, and the now current version in 2012.

Structure

It is hierarchically structured in four levels. For example, one branch of the hierarchy contains:

Computing methodologies

Artificial intelligence

Knowledge representation and reasoning

Ontology engineering

See also

• Computer Science Ontology
• Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme
• arXiv, a preprint server allowing submitted papers to be classified using the ACM CCS
• Physics Subject Headings

References

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External links

• dl.acm.org/ccs is the homepage of the system, including links to four complete versions of the system:
  • the 1964 version
  • the 1991 version
  • the 1998 version
  • the current 2012 version.
• The ACM Computing Research Repository uses a classification scheme that is much coarser than the ACM subject classification, and does not cover all areas of CS, but is intended to better cover active areas of research. In addition, papers in this repository are classified according to the ACM subject classification.