ACM Computing Classification System

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.

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

• 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

• Coulter, Neal (1997), "ACM's computing classification system reflects changing times", Communications of the ACM, 40 (12), New York, NY, USA: ACM: 111–112, doi:10.1145/265563.265579, S2CID 42548816.
• Coulter, Neal (chair); French, James; Glinert, Ephraim; Horton, Thomas; Mead, Nancy; Ralston, Anthony; Rada, Roy; Rodkin, Craig; Rous, Bernard; Tucker, Allen; Wegner, Peter; Weiss, Eric; Wierzbicki, Carol (January 21, 1998), "Computing Classification System 1998: Current Status and Future Maintenance Report of the CCS Update Committee" (PDF), Computing Reviews, New York, NY, USA: ACM: 1–5.
• Mirkin, Boris; Nascimento, Susana; Pereira, Luis Moniz (2008), "Representing a Computer Science Research Organization on the ACM Computing Classification System", in Eklund, Peter; Haemmerlé, Ollivier (eds.), Supplementary Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Conceptual Structures (ICCS-2008) (PDF), CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol. 354, RWTH Aachen University, pp. 57–65.

• dl.acm.org/ccs is the homepage of the system, including links to four complete versions of the system:
  • the 1964 version Archived 2016-12-01 at the Wayback Machine
  • the 1991 version Archived 2017-09-21 at the Wayback Machine
  • 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.
• The ACM/IEEE/AAAI Computer Science Curriculum Guidance 2023 describes a body of knowledge for computer science divided into 17 knowledge areas, similar to the above classifications.