Should conferences meet journals and where? A proposal for 'PACM'

The ACM Publications Board Conferences Committee has been working on a proposal that will brings together conference and journal publishing. This proposal has been driven by strong input from the computer science (CS) research community where the prevailing feeling is that proceedings puts CS researchers at a disadvantage with respect to researchers in other scientific disciplines, where journal publication predominates, and is hence fundamentally detrimental to the CS field, despite strong review processes and selective acceptance. The committee proposes an alternative where a journal series specifically created to publish the proceedings of ACM's highest quality conferences.