Infocom artifact evaluation

INFOCOM Artifact Evaluation

Use this when you want to release an artifact. The first thing to internalize: INFOCOM has no standing artifact-evaluation track and no mandatory badge process (as of 2026-07-09; 待核实 whether a cycle introduces one). Unlike SIGCOMM/NSDI/USENIX ATC — where a separate committee runs your artifact and awards badges — an INFOCOM artifact is entirely optional and self-directed. That changes the goal: you package not to pass an evaluator, but to make a large, skeptical, no-rebuttal reviewer pool believe your numbers.

What the absence of a formal track changes

At an artifact-track venue (SIGCOMM/NSDI/ATC)	At INFOCOM
A committee runs your artifact on a deadline	No one is required to run it
Badges (Available/Functional/Reproduced) are awarded	No INFOCOM badge exists (待核实 per cycle)
Packaging is a graded deliverable	Packaging is a credibility investment you choose
The artifact can lift a borderline decision	A released package pre-empts "I don't believe this" in the PDF

Because no evaluator is guaranteed, the payoff of a release is reviewer trust and post-publication impact, not a badge. Optimize for a reader who might look, and for the researchers who will build on your simulator after publication.

IEEE reproducibility options you can opt into

• IEEE DataPort — deposit datasets/traces with a DOI and a license.
• DOI-issuing archives — Zenodo, figshare, or Software Heritage for a simulator or code release with a permanent identifier and an OSI-approved license.
• Some IEEE venues offer code/data availability badges; INFOCOM does not mandate them — confirm the current cycle's specifics before claiming one (待核实).

What a credible networking release contains

Contribution type	First thing a reader checks	Common failure to avoid
An algorithm/protocol	A README and one run command on a small example	Only-runs-on-authors'-cluster; undocumented deps
A simulation study	The scripts that regenerate the paper's figures from logged runs	Numbers in the PDF no script reproduces
A dataset/trace	The data plus its provenance and preprocessing	Query shipped, data missing; source unstated
A learning-for-networking result	Cached inputs/outputs, model IDs, seeds	Requires live API keys; not reproducible

Packaging plan (optional but persuasive)

[Container]   a Dockerfile or a pinned environment (requirements/lockfile) for the simulator/tool
[README]      one screen: what it is, how to install, how to run a small demo, how to regenerate
              each figure, expected runtime and outputs
[Mapping]     an explicit table: paper claim/figure -> script -> expected result
[Config]      the exact topology, traffic model, seeds, and parameters used in the paper
[Data]        the trace/dataset (or documented access), not just the generator
[License]     an OSI-approved license so others can build on it
[Archive]     deposit in a DOI-issuing repository (Zenodo/DataPort/Software Heritage)

Double-blind timing

• At submission: if you link an artifact for reviewers, anonymize it — no owner strings, cluster paths, lab names, or identifying repo — and host it behind an anonymizing service. Nothing decision-critical may live only there (reviewers need not open it).
• After acceptance: replace anonymized placeholders with the public, licensed, DOI-issuing archive, and make the camera-ready's statements match it.

Vignette: releasing a scheduling simulator + trace

A paper contributes an edge-scheduling algorithm evaluated by trace-driven simulation. A credible optional release: a Docker image with the custom simulator pre-built; a run_demo.sh that runs one small scenario in under a minute; a figures/ directory whose scripts regenerate each plot from logged runs; a claim-to-script table in the README; the request trace (or documented access) with its provenance; and an MIT/Apache license with a Zenodo DOI. State honestly which figures are turnkey and which need the full (slow) trace.

Calibration

• There is no artifact deadline because there is no artifact track — do not invent one; the only related deadline is the IEEE Xplore camera-ready (infocom-camera-ready).
• If a future cycle adds an artifact/badge process, confirm its rules, timing, and anonymity model on the current call before advising (待核实).

Output format

[Release decision] release / no release, with reason
[Target] credibility only / IEEE DataPort / DOI archive / (badge if a cycle offers one, 待核实)
[Contents] <simulator/tool + config + data + license>
[Ten-minute test] does install + demo succeed on a clean machine? yes/no
[Figure mapping] <figure -> script -> expected result present? yes/no>
[Anonymity] anonymized for review; de-anonymized DOI archive for camera-ready? yes/no