ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

About ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology: Journal Overview

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It is the flagship archival journal of ACM's Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) and one of the principal venues for full-length research in software engineering. Since its founding in 1992, TOSEM has published long-form, deeply validated research on how large, complex software systems are specified, designed, built, analysed, and maintained — serving as the permanent record of the field alongside its sister journal, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

TOSEM's standing in the research community is reflected in its citation metrics. The journal's Journal Impact Factor is reported as 6.9 (2025), and it is placed in the top quartile among computer science journals in the SCImago ranking (sources: Wikipedia, citing the Journal Citation Reports and SCImago, accessed October 2026 — readers should treat these figures as secondary and verify current values on the journal's official pages).

The journal operates with a distinctive editorial model for the field. Alongside a large international editorial board, TOSEM pioneered a fast-impact review track — a time-bounded review process introduced in 2018 aimed at giving new and relevant results early visibility — which now accounts for more than half of the journal's submissions. It also runs a registered reports track, continuous special sections on emerging topics, and a journal-first partnership with leading software engineering conferences (sources: outgoing Editor-in-Chief's farewell editorial, star-rep.inf.usi.ch, December 2024; dl.acm.org/journal/tosem).

History of ACM TOSEM

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology was launched in 1992, with W. Richards Adrion serving as its founding Editor-in-Chief (1992–1994). It was established to give software engineering research a dedicated archival home within the ACM's family of Transactions journals — a venue for complete, rigorously validated papers at a time when the field's top results mostly appeared as shorter conference publications.

The journal's leadership has passed through a succession of prominent software engineering researchers. Axel van Lamsweerde led the journal from 1995 to 2000, followed by Carlo Ghezzi (2001–2006), David Notkin (2007–2012), and David S. Rosenblum (2013–2018). Mauro Pezzè served as Editor-in-Chief from 2019 through 2024, a term marked by major innovations in the journal's publishing model: the launch of the fast-impact track in 2018 (which continued and grew under his editorship), the introduction of registered papers, continuous special sections, and a deliberate effort to broaden the journal's geographic reach. In his farewell editorial ("The End of the Journey," published December 2024), Pezzè noted that the geographic distribution of TOSEM's published papers had been transformed during his term — with strong growth from Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and South America alongside the traditional North American and European base — and that fast-impact papers had come to represent over 50% of total submissions (source: star-rep.inf.usi.ch PDF of the editorial; EIC history per Wikipedia).

In January 2025, the journal entered a new editorial era with the appointment of Abhik Roychoudhury as Editor-in-Chief, serving a three-year term from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2027 (source: acm.org, The Blue Diamond, January 2025). His inaugural editorial, "TOSEM Journal in 2025 and Beyond," committed to continuing the continuous special sections on Sustainable SE and Quantum SE as well as the registered reports and Frontiers of SE paper categories, while announcing further new editors and initiatives (source: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3708477).

Leadership and Editorial Team

The current Editor-in-Chief of ACM TOSEM is Abhik Roychoudhury, a Provost's Chair Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS), appointed for the term 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2027 (source: acm.org, The Blue Diamond, January 2025). He succeeded Mauro Pezzè, who is affiliated with USI Lugano and the Schaffhausen Institute of Technology.

Roychoudhury is internationally recognised for contributions to software testing and analysis, including automated program repair and fuzz testing — work honoured with his election as an ACM Fellow in 2024, the IEEE TCSE New Directions Award (2022, jointly with Cristian Cadar) for contributions to symbolic execution, and the ICSE 2023 Most Influential Paper Award for a 2013 paper on semantic approaches to program repair. He earned his PhD in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2000 and has been at NUS since 2001. Beyond research, he has chaired the field's major conferences — General Chair of FSE 2022, Program Co-chair of ICSE 2024, Program Chair of ISSTA 2016 — and chairs the ACM SIGSOFT FSE Steering Committee (sources: abhikrc.com; comp.nus.edu.sg announcement; conf.researchr.org profile).

The journal is run by the Editor-in-Chief together with a large international editorial board of associate editors and board members, plus dedicated guest editorial boards for its continuous special sections. The current continuous special section on Sustainable Software Engineering is led by chief section editor Birgit Penzenstadler, with Elisa Yumi Nakagawa as section editor (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/continuousspecialsections). TOSEM also appoints guest editors for special initiatives — for example, guest editor-in-chief Marcel Böhme led the registered-papers initiative (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).

Aims & Scope

According to the journal's official scope statement, TOSEM addresses the central challenge of designing and building large, complex software systems. The journal publishes papers on all aspects of that challenge — from specification and design through development and maintenance — and its coverage spans tools and methodologies, programming languages, data structures, and algorithms. It reports not only on new research results but also on successful efforts in practice, noting the practical lessons that can be scaled up and transferred to other projects, and it frequently examines applications of innovative technologies. The tone is scholarly but readable; the content is expected to be worthy of study and the presentation effective (source: where2submit listing mirroring the ACM scope statement, accessed October 2026 — paraphrased above; readers should consult the official journal page for the authoritative text).

In practice, this scope covers the full breadth of software engineering research: requirements engineering, software architecture and design, program analysis, software testing and verification, model checking, program repair, empirical software engineering, software maintenance and evolution, software security, software analytics, and the application of AI and machine learning to software engineering tasks. Continuous special sections focus on emerging hot topics such as sustainable software engineering, quantum software engineering, AI and software engineering, security and software engineering, and human-centric software engineering (sources: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/continuousspecialsections; outgoing EIC editorial).

Editorial Process and Peer Review

Manuscripts are handled by the Editor-in-Chief and the editorial board, with each paper assigned to an associate editor who oversees the review. TOSEM offers several distinct submission tracks, each with its own review model (sources: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers; dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/continuousspecialsections; outgoing EIC editorial).

How manuscripts are handled:

1. Standard (regular) track. Full-length research papers undergo conventional peer review by expert reviewers coordinated by an associate editor, with the possibility of major/minor revisions.
2. Fast-impact track. Introduced in 2018, this track offers a time-bounded review process for papers presenting new research results with no more than 45 pages of text (excluding bibliography). The aim is to give timely, early visibility to new and relevant results in a fast-moving field. If authors submit a revision within 45 days, the journal commits to completing subsequent reviews within 45 days. Fast-impact papers now account for more than 50% of all TOSEM submissions (sources: continuous special sections page; outgoing EIC editorial; documented in an official decision letter on the fast-impact timeline).
3. Registered papers (registered reports). A two-stage model. In Stage 1, authors submit a registered report — essentially a full paper minus the results — including a detailed description of the methodology to be used and preliminary results demonstrating feasibility. Reviewers assess novelty and significance plus the soundness and reproducibility of the study design; in-principle acceptance is decided at this stage, after potential revisions. In Stage 2, the full paper is evaluated only on whether the agreed study design was followed and deviations explained — the strength of the final results is explicitly not a reviewing criterion. Registered papers are limited to 45 pages (excluding bibliography), and public preregistration (e.g., at a workshop) is allowed (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).
4. Continuous special sections. Rolling special sections on emerging topics span consecutive issues; papers are managed by a dedicated guest editorial board, reviewed within the fast-impact track timeline, and published within the respective special sections (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/continuousspecialsections).
5. Frontiers of Software Engineering. A dedicated paper type in the submission system for visionary and forward-looking contributions (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/roadmap2030 call for papers).

Journal-first papers. TOSEM accepts journal-first submissions — papers published in the journal and then presented at partner conferences (ICSE/FSE) — and the submission site explicitly supports journal-first manuscripts (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers). The journal also participates in community-wide initiatives to coordinate conference and journal reviewing, such as the Software Engineering Sustainable Community Review Effort (SCRE) (source: Pezzè editorial).

Reproducibility. Authors of all accepted papers are invited to submit a Replicating Computational Results (RCR) report, supporting the journal's commitment to reproducibility (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).

Acceptance rate. ACM does not publish an official acceptance rate for TOSEM on its journal pages, and this profile does not report one. Prospective authors should note that TOSEM is widely regarded as a highly selective venue in software engineering.

Impact and Metrics

The following metrics are reported by secondary sources (Wikipedia, citing the Journal Citation Reports and SCImago), accessed October 2026. Readers should verify current figures on the journal's official pages, as they are updated annually.

The journal reports steady citation growth even as publication volume has expanded — the outgoing Editor-in-Chief noted that the steady high number of citations per paper showed that growth in publications reflected genuine growth of research in the community rather than inflation of results (source: outgoing EIC editorial, December 2024).

Submission Guidelines

Submissions are made through the journal's online submission site, Manuscript Central (ScholarOne) — authors select the appropriate manuscript type (regular paper, fast-impact track, registered report, continuous special section, or Frontiers of Software Engineering) at submission (sources: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers; dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/roadmap2030). Key points from the official guidance:

• Submission portal: Manuscripts are submitted through the TOSEM Manuscript Central site (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tosem), as directed on the journal's official pages.
• Article length: Fast-impact track and registered papers must present their text in no more than 45 pages, excluding the bibliography (sources: dl.acm.org journal pages).
• Registered report structure: Stage 1 submissions must include a section called "Results" containing the text: "This is a Stage 1 submission and results are not included," plus a detailed description of the methodology and preliminary feasibility results (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).
• Formatting: Authors should use the official ACM article templates for submission; guidance on templates is published on acm.org/publications/submission-templates.
• Prior publication: As with ACM Transactions generally, submissions must represent original work not under consideration elsewhere; extended versions of conference papers require substantial new material and disclosure of the prior publication.
• Reproducibility artefacts: Authors are encouraged to make data, code, and other artefacts available, and authors of accepted papers may submit an accompanying RCR report (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).

Open Access and APC

ACM TOSEM is published under ACM's ACM Open model — a hybrid open access model in which authors affiliated with institutions participating in ACM Open can publish open access at no charge to the author, while other authors may pay an article processing charge (APC) for immediate open access (source: libraries.acm.org/acmopen/apc-list-pricing).

ACM publishes official APC list pricing on its libraries site (accessed October 2026):

• Journal article list price: $1,800
• ACM/SIG member price: $1,300

ACM notes that APC prices were unchanged from 2013 to 2024, rose modestly by $100 in 2025 to support the sustainability of the publishing program, and that temporary subsidized 2026 rates — below the actual cost of publishing — apply during the transition to ACM Open; journal-article APCs return to list pricing for articles processed through the ACM eRights system after 12:00 am US Eastern time on 1 January 2027. Authors should verify the current charges on ACM's official APC list pricing page before relying on any number (source: libraries.acm.org/acmopen/apc-list-pricing).

Landmark Contributions Published in TOSEM

Over more than three decades, TOSEM has been the archival home of foundational research across software engineering. The journal's pages have carried influential work on software specification and verification, model checking, program analysis, software testing, automated program repair, requirements engineering, software architecture, and empirical studies of software practice — including extended versions of award-winning conference papers from ICSE and FSE presented through the journal-first route.

TOSEM has also shaped the field's research agenda through its special sections. Under Mauro Pezzè's editorship, continuous special sections were established in then-emerging areas — AI and software engineering, human-centric software engineering, security and software engineering, quantum software engineering, and sustainable software engineering — and in their final year the journal received 192 submissions to these sections alone, signalling where the community's research energy was heading (source: outgoing EIC editorial, December 2024). The sections on sustainable software engineering and quantum software engineering continue under the current editorship (source: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3708477).

The introduction of the registered reports track marked a methodological landmark in its own right: by granting in-principle acceptance based on study design rather than results, TOSEM joined a small group of computing journals explicitly addressing publication bias and the reproducibility crisis in empirical software engineering (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).

The TOSEM Ecosystem

TOSEM sits within ACM's family of computing Transactions journals and works closely with the software engineering conference ecosystem. The journal-first model lets authors publish a complete paper in TOSEM and then present it at a major conference, getting both archival publication and conference visibility. The journal-first review pathway, together with the SCRE (Software Engineering Sustainable Community Review Effort) initiative shared with IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering and ICSE, aims to improve review quality and consistency for papers extending conference publications and to reduce duplicated reviewing across the community (source: Pezzè editorial).

Authors are encouraged to accompany accepted papers with Replicating Computational Results (RCR) reports, and the registered-papers initiative has been led by dedicated guest editors, underlining the journal's investment in reproducibility as a core editorial value (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).

Key Facts

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ACM TOSEM?

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) is a monthly peer-reviewed journal published by the Association for Computing Machinery since 1992. It publishes full-length archival research on all aspects of software engineering — from specification and design to development, maintenance, tools, languages, and methodologies — and is one of the field's two principal archival journals alongside IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

Who is the Editor-in-Chief of TOSEM?

Abhik Roychoudhury, Provost's Chair Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore, has been Editor-in-Chief since 1 January 2025, for a term running to 31 December 2027. He succeeded Mauro Pezzè (2019–2024) (sources: acm.org, The Blue Diamond, January 2025; Wikipedia for past terms).

What is TOSEM's impact factor?

The journal's Impact Factor is reported as 6.9 (2025), with a top-quartile (Q1) SCImago ranking among computer science journals. These figures come from secondary sources citing the Journal Citation Reports and are updated annually — verify current values on the journal's official pages.

What does TOSEM publish?

TOSEM publishes papers on all aspects of designing and building large, complex software systems: specification, design, development, and maintenance, including tools and methodologies, languages, data structures, and algorithms. It also reports on successful practical efforts and applications of innovative technologies (scope paraphrased from the journal's official statement).

What is the fast-impact track?

The fast-impact track, introduced in 2018, is a time-bounded review process for papers presenting new research results in no more than 45 pages of text (excluding bibliography). If authors revise within 45 days, subsequent reviews are completed within 45 days. It now accounts for more than half of TOSEM submissions (sources: dl.acm.org continuous special sections page; outgoing EIC editorial).

What are TOSEM registered papers?

Registered papers follow a two-stage model: in Stage 1, authors submit a registered report with their study design and preliminary feasibility results; reviewers grant in-principle acceptance based on novelty, significance, and soundness of the methodology. In Stage 2, the full paper is judged on adherence to the agreed design — not on how striking the results are. This guards against publication bias (source: dl.acm.org/journal/tosem/registered-papers).

How do I submit a paper to TOSEM?

Manuscripts are submitted through the journal's Manuscript Central (ScholarOne) submission site, choosing the appropriate manuscript type: regular paper, fast-impact track, registered report, continuous special section, Frontiers of Software Engineering, or journal-first, as directed on the journal's official pages.

Is TOSEM open access? What is the APC?

TOSEM is published under ACM's hybrid ACM Open model. Authors at institutions participating in ACM Open publish open access at no charge; others may pay an APC — ACM's official list pricing is $1,800 for a journal article ($1,300 for ACM/SIG members), with temporary subsidized rates during 2026. Verify current charges on ACM's official APC pricing page (source: libraries.acm.org/acmopen/apc-list-pricing).

Does TOSEM publish journal-first papers?

Yes. TOSEM supports journal-first submissions — papers published in the journal and subsequently presented at partner conferences — and the submission site has a dedicated journal-first option. It also participates in the SCRE initiative to coordinate conference and journal reviewing (sources: dl.acm.org; Pezzè editorial).

What are TOSEM's ISSNs?

The print ISSN is 1049-331X and the electronic ISSN is 1557-7392; the ISO 4 abbreviation is ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol. (source: Wikipedia).

How often is TOSEM published?

TOSEM is published monthly by ACM (source: Wikipedia).

Where can I find TOSEM's official page?

The official journal page is https://dl.acm.org/journal/tosem on the ACM Digital Library, which hosts the aims and scope, editorial board, submission links, and special-section information.

Profile compiled October 2026 from official ACM and ACM Digital Library sources listed below. Metrics, policies, and personnel change over time — always verify current figures on the journal's official pages before citing or acting on them.