Re: Request for guidance from AGWG re mathematical markup

Hi Janina,

Of course, Jason has been researching this a lot lately, so he may have some good observations to share. My usual response is that the MathML specification is *the* W3C recommendation for including math expressions in web content. However, since browser vendors have been slow to support MathML, MathJax has become the common way these days to support math display in a web page until browser support catches up. It also allows web page authors to use either MathML, LaTeX or ASCIIMath in the body of the page source code, which then gets processed by JavaScript to produce proper looking math expressions. MathJax also provides off-screen MathML to the browser, which enables screen readers to read the math. Of course, once Chromium has adopted MathML support, the need for MathJax will be greatly diminished. One could certainly use MathML in the page source and MathJax would take care of proving appropriate support for browsers that need it.

Hope that helps,

--Steve



Steve Noble
Instructional Designer, Accessibility
Psychometrics & Testing Services

Pearson

502 969 3088
steve.noble@pearson.com<mailto:steve.noble@pearson.com>

[https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/xFjftXlwMzpdFeTtDgc4_IwyMYm8ThtQHIsgElkS8fyiCO2M7ZM0WaO7r2uy-bmKAe5S2sIcg7d-mwbD4ArkJhyafHke-SgJ2ui8DoGoBhZw4YIyWeK3LUozNMwBff4JR2tdu8nZ2fvoNvkkA06KNw9-s3P9UvYsHSTphHss6X0=s0-d-e1-ft#http://accessibility4school.pearson.com/access/4c49fe02-e204-46b4-b6f0-82f5a3f159cb/pearson-accessibility.jpg]


________________________________
From: Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2020 2:42 PM
To: George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com>; tzviya.wai@rednote.net <tzviya.wai@rednote.net>; White, Jason J <jjwhite@ets.org>
Cc: W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures <public-apa@w3.org>
Subject: Request for guidance from AGWG re mathematical markup

Colleagues:

The Silver Task Force of AGWG has mathematical equations destined for
WCAG 3.0. The source is currently maintained in latex, but that will not
suffice for document publication in html.

APA's help has been requested for determining the best markup
approach--perhaps even in time for the FPWD of WCAG 3.0, and certainly
by the time that specification becomes a W3C recommendation in a couple
years. Please see Jeanne Spellman's attached request.

So, I'm adding this item as a brief agendum at the top of the APA
teleconference call for this Wednesday 26 February. I don't expect we'll
arrive at the final answer for Silver, but we should be able to better understand the
need and identify who we need to pulled into the conversation.

It's also our (APA's) opportunity to ask about the status of
enhancements to MathML, and to markup for Chemistry that got such a
great start about a year ago. I'm hoping we'll learn that work is
proceeding apace, but I'm concerned it may have stalled.

If you're able to join the APA teleconference for this issue at 12:00
(Noon) Boston Time this Wednesday 26 February, you are most welcome. I
understand this is very little advance notice. If not, the topic will be
back. Updates via email on list (in response to this email) are, of
course, also most welcome.

Thanking you in advance,

Janina


--

Janina Sajka

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:       https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__a11y.org&d=DwIBAg&c=0YLnzTkWOdJlub_y7qAx8Q&r=e0Vlq1-H9s-GydHZ8dXqhyYdB-jv9NvThaezSlozh9I&m=ia-JwqhQycqf-vLIljA5FesDi6Qdb46j7HYIG1t8elY&s=ivsGSPeo5Cf81vWmqVCgSkJDtnXe-iRVmKbUHxgnDZE&e=

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures        https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.w3.org_wai_apa&d=DwIBAg&c=0YLnzTkWOdJlub_y7qAx8Q&r=e0Vlq1-H9s-GydHZ8dXqhyYdB-jv9NvThaezSlozh9I&m=ia-JwqhQycqf-vLIljA5FesDi6Qdb46j7HYIG1t8elY&s=r2QuGDsdJahzEj-Fk1rL9lM0R6IOlVUi__fXagH7Yy4&e=