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Main Author: Luo, Zhongtang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.16623
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author Luo, Zhongtang
author_facet Luo, Zhongtang
contents Scientific publications significantly impact academic-related decisions in computer science, where top-tier conferences are particularly influential. However, efforts required to produce a publication differ drastically across various subfields. While existing citation-based studies compare venues within areas, cross-area comparisons remain challenging due to differing publication volumes and citation practices. To address this gap, we introduce the concept of ICLR points, defined as the average effort required to produce one publication at top-tier machine learning conferences such as ICLR, ICML, and NeurIPS. Leveraging comprehensive publication data from DBLP (2019--2023) and faculty information from CSRankings, we quantitatively measure and compare the average publication effort across 27 computer science sub-areas. Our analysis reveals significant differences in average publication effort, validating anecdotal perceptions: systems conferences generally require more effort per publication than AI conferences. We further demonstrate the utility of the ICLR points metric by evaluating publication records of universities, current faculties and recent faculty candidates. Our findings highlight how using this metric enables more meaningful cross-area comparisons in academic evaluation processes. Lastly, we discuss the metric's limitations and caution against its misuse, emphasizing the necessity of holistic assessment criteria beyond publication metrics alone.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_16623
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ICLR Points: How Many ICLR Publications Is One Paper in Each Area?
Luo, Zhongtang
Digital Libraries
Computers and Society
Scientific publications significantly impact academic-related decisions in computer science, where top-tier conferences are particularly influential. However, efforts required to produce a publication differ drastically across various subfields. While existing citation-based studies compare venues within areas, cross-area comparisons remain challenging due to differing publication volumes and citation practices. To address this gap, we introduce the concept of ICLR points, defined as the average effort required to produce one publication at top-tier machine learning conferences such as ICLR, ICML, and NeurIPS. Leveraging comprehensive publication data from DBLP (2019--2023) and faculty information from CSRankings, we quantitatively measure and compare the average publication effort across 27 computer science sub-areas. Our analysis reveals significant differences in average publication effort, validating anecdotal perceptions: systems conferences generally require more effort per publication than AI conferences. We further demonstrate the utility of the ICLR points metric by evaluating publication records of universities, current faculties and recent faculty candidates. Our findings highlight how using this metric enables more meaningful cross-area comparisons in academic evaluation processes. Lastly, we discuss the metric's limitations and caution against its misuse, emphasizing the necessity of holistic assessment criteria beyond publication metrics alone.
title ICLR Points: How Many ICLR Publications Is One Paper in Each Area?
topic Digital Libraries
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.16623