Faq

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions that are asked frequently about ecoCompute Science, together with a number of points that are worth clarifying in advance.

1. Is ecoCompute Science the same as the ecoCompute conference?

No. ecoCompute Science is a new peer-reviewed, artifact-first venue held online. The ecoCompute conference was a large in-person engineering conference, held in Munich in 2024 and in Berlin in 2025. Owing to the organisational overhead of an in-person event of that size, no in-person ecoCompute will be held in 2027. The earlier material remains available in the archive.

2. When and where is it held?

Summer 2027, online, in the European time zone. There is no venue. Exact dates will be announced on this site.

3. What exactly is submitted?

Two pages and a complete, runnable artifact. See the Call for Papers for the format and Artifacts for what the artifact must contain.

4. Is the two-page limit strict?

Yes. The write-up is a guide to the artifact, not the evidence itself. Bullet points are acceptable throughout and presentational quality is not a criterion for acceptance. The full paper follows later, at stage two, after the event.

5. Must the artifact be hosted on a particular platform?

No. An archive file or a container image is sufficient. What is required is a precise, step-by-step guide that enables a reviewer to regenerate the reported results without consulting the authors.

6. The work requires specialised hardware. Can it still be submitted?

Yes, provided reviewers can be given access to those systems for the duration of the review period. Hardware requirements should be declared at submission so that reviewers able to work with them can be assigned.

7. Energy measurements are noisy. How can they be reviewed at all?

By stating which property is expected to be stable and within what tolerance: an ordering, a direction or an effect size, together with the variance across your own runs rather than a single mean. A reviewer who reproduces the stated ordering but not the absolute values has reproduced the claim, provided the claim was formulated in those terms.

8. What happens if the artifact does not build on the reviewer’s machine?

That is the purpose of the kick-the-tires phase. The opening days of the review period are reserved for setup: reviewers report any issue that prevents them from starting, and authors are given a short window in which to correct it. Artifacts should not fail on setup problems.

9. Are negative results accepted?

Yes, and more of them would be welcome: the optimisation that did not yield a benefit, the effect that disappeared once noise was controlled for, the tool that did not measure what it claimed to measure. An artifact-centred venue is the appropriate home for such results.

10. Are replication studies accepted?

Yes. An unsuccessful attempt to reproduce a published result is a full submission here, not secondary material.

11. Can work based on industry data that cannot leave the company be submitted?

Possibly, through the planned industry and impact track: a lower requirement for reproducibility, a higher requirement for applicability, and a mandatory impact artifact. That track is still being developed, and concrete cases will shape it more effectively than speculation. Authors with such work are invited to contact the organisers.

12. Are there presentations?

No. The event consists entirely of discussion, following the session format used at ICT4S. Each accepted submission is allocated three sessions, the author participates in all three, and all participants have read the submissions one week in advance.

13. Is reading the submissions before a session mandatory?

Yes. The submissions are circulated one week beforehand and having read them is a condition of participation. Groups are limited in size so that every participant is able to contribute, which requires that everyone arrives prepared.

14. Where is the work published?

In two stages. Stage one is the two-page write-up together with the artifact, reviewed and presented at the event. Stage two is a full paper written afterwards and shepherded by a committee member, which receives a DOI. The journal hosting stage two is being finalised.

15. Is review single-blind, double-blind or open?

Undecided. Artifacts are difficult to anonymise reliably, so a decision is required between accepting single-blind review and adopting a fully open process. Comments on this question are welcome.

16. What does attendance cost?

Undecided. Registration free of charge produces high rates of non-attendance, which is untenable for discussion groups of limited size. A nominal fee, a short application, and an invitation model are all under consideration.

17. Can I serve as a reviewer?

Yes. A programme committee and an artifact evaluation committee are currently being assembled. Please write to us, stating what you are able to execute and what hardware you have access to.

18. In what language is the event held?

English.

Further questions?

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