Multi-view of the ACM classification system

The ACM Computing Classification System (CCS) is a hierarchical classification system used to index and classify all the published literature of ACM. They reflect major areas and topics of the computing field and they often serve as an overview and navigational guide to the field. However, similar to all the traditional classification systems and subject domain thesauri, such an overview and navigational guide is static and sketchy, representing only a top-down representation of a domain. In this paper, we look into a 10-year period of ACM literature and examine how the CCS terms are actually used in the ACM digital library and how the patterns of term usages show different term relationships than those defined in the CCS. By comparing the dynamic statistical patterns of term usage with the static hierarchical structures of the terms, we show that much can be gained by integrating both of them into an interactive interface to provide better overview maps and navigational guides to the domain of computing.