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:
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, S2CID42548816.
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.