COMPASSCOMPASS 2025, hosted in Toronto, invites interdisciplinary research on sustainability with a focus on how computing and moves toward sustainability are embedded in and shaped by specific local contexts—computing in place. Rooted in the broader discourse of sustainability but also open to questioning its prevailing narratives, COMPASS welcomes work that critically examines how technology intersects with social, environmental, and economic systems. This year’s theme encourages a deeper, situated perspective on how technological practices emerge as solutions, but also contributors to the complexities they claim to address.
COMPASS draws from a wide array of disciplines: computer and information sciences, social sciences, critical geography, environmental studies, economics, climate studies, and engineering. We aim to foster a discussion that interrogates not only the potentials but also the limitations of technology-led interventions in sustainability. This includes research that explores power dynamics, inequality, and extraction—how technology might reinforce or disrupt existing systems. We encourage work from activists, worker advocates, and indigenous scholars, alongside those studying topics such as labour movements, climate adaptation, and the ethics of sustainability practices. COMPASS values research that brings forth the often-unseen political and material consequences of digital infrastructure in shaping futures.
COMPASS explicitly promotes multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary research and practice that address key challenges for sustainable societies including, but not limited to, equity, health, education, poverty, accessibility, conservation, climate change, energy, infrastructure and economic growth. We also welcome research on the ethics of technology, especially from a critical perspective, that explores limitations and concerns with technology-led solutions for sustainable societies. COMPASS also has a particular commitment to approaches and research that address the challenges faced by under-represented and marginalized communities.
Late-Breaking Works are invited on topics of interest to the COMPASS 2024 community, focussing on applications of computing for sustainability or social development. The theme of the conference will be Computing in Place. We also invite submissions that speak to that theme and/or contribute to one or more of the following areas:
- Systems and IoT for Sustainable Societies
- HCI, Design and Critical Perspectives
- AI, ML and Data Science for Sustainable Societies
- Development, Economics and Policy
- Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change
- Technology, Media, and Social Practice
Accepted Late-Breaking Works submissions will be included in the ACM Archives. Authors must therefore expand or otherwise significantly modify versions of these works as papers to COMPASS or any other venue.
Important Dates for Authors
This year, COMPASS is accepting late-breaking work submissions in multiple rounds. Authors who need visas to travel to Canada may consider submitting to the early round.
- First Round
- Submission Site Open: December 2, 2024
- Submission Deadline: December 9, 2024
- Notification to the Authors: January 15
- Camera-Ready Completion Deadline: February 7, 2025
- Second Round
- Submission deadline:
February 28April 5, 2025 - Notification to the authors:
April 15May 09, 2025 - Camera-Ready Completion Deadline:
May 7, 2025May 30, 2025
- Submission deadline:
- COMPASS 2025 Conference: July 22-25, 2025
Deadlines are anywhere on earth (AoE) time.
Please submit Late Breaking Break through the HOTCRP portal.
Submission Guidelines
- Late-Breaking Work submissions should be between 2000 and 3000 words excluding references.
- Submissions should not be anonymous; that is, author names should be included in the submission.
- Authors must use the current ACM two-column conference format. LaTeX, Word, and Overleaf templates are available on the ACM Website.
- For LaTeX use ‘sigconf’ proceedings template. The following should settings should be used in the template: documentclass[sigconf,natbib=true]{acmart}
- For Word, use the Interim Template for Word.
Accessibility
We ask that authors create accessible submissions when submitting their PDF. Please follow the guidance in the SIGCHI Accessibility Guide for Authors, particularly Section 1: Authoring an Accessible Document, and Section 2: Submitting Accessible Documents for Review. https://sigchi.org/resources/guides-for-authors/accessibility/
Authorship and AI
We will be following the ACM Policy on Authorship, which states that Authors must be the “creator or originator of an idea” and/or Work; Authors must make a substantial contribution to the Work; and Authors must be accountable for the work that was done and its presentation in a publication. Generative AI tools may not be listed as authors, and their use must be fully disclosed in the work according to the policy. Papers found in violation of this policy may be rejected.
Review Process
The COMPASS organizing team is committed to providing supportive and high-quality reviews to all submissions, regardless of research method or topic. Submissions will undergo a single-blind review process. Reviewers will focus on the contribution and originality of your work. Given the scope of a Late-Breaking Work submission, provide a brief background and focus on the contribution of your work. Some of the guiding questions to assist with drafting your poster submission include: What is the problem? What is the motivation for your work? Why is this work important to COMPASS? What is the contribution you are making?
Accepted papers will be included in the Proceedings of COMPASS 2025, and will become available in ACM Digital Library.
Upon Acceptance of Your Late-Breaking Work
Authors will be notified of conditional acceptance or rejection of their submission on or before the notification date listed above. Meta reviews will describe any further changes that the authors are expected to make to the paper prior to its publication. These should be made as part of a “camera ready submission” and submitted to the papers submission site by the deadline listed above. Final changes will be checked by members of the Program Committee prior to making a final acceptance of the paper. If authors are unable to meet the requirements for changes, the program chairs will be notified and may reject the paper.
All accepted submissions require a signed form assigning an exclusive publication license to the ACM (which will not require a publication fee), or an upfront fee to ACM to enable Open Access.
Additionally, each accepted submission requires a conference registration fee to be paid by one of the paper’s authors. If no author from the paper registers, the paper may not be published in the ACM Digital Library.
All published papers will appear online in the ACM Digital Library and be distributed digitally to conference delegates as part of the conference proceedings.
At the conference, authors of accepted submissions must present their work and be available to answer questions from other conference participants. Presenters of papers will have a presentation slot at the conference of approximately 20 minutes, though this may be altered prior to the conference based on scheduling needs. Information on presentations will be sent by email to the corresponding author. Papers whose authors do not present in any form may be removed from the ACM Digital Library and the conference proceedings.
Accepted authors should ensure they have obtained permissions to use licensed content and images that depict identifiable people in their conference contributions (paper, videos, and presentations).
Questions?
Please direct any questions to the papers chairs at late-breaking-work-2025@compass.acm.org.
By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.
Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. The collection process has started and will roll out as a requirement throughout 2024. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.
Some text in this guidance is adapted from prior ACM COMPASS conferences, ACM FAccT 2024, and ACM DIS 2024