Some feedback from Chemistry CG

With Cary's permission, I am forwarding this message from the Chemistry CG
to the MathML mailing list.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Supalo, Cary A <csupalo@ets.org>
Date: Mon, Sep 7, 2020 at 4:09 PM
Subject: RE: Request for phone meeting
To: Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu>








Dear Neil,



A small group of chemistry community members met informally last week to
discuss your request more at length. The following bulleted list of points
are what we perceive as a starting point for a fruitful discussion on what
further disambiguation of chemistry terminology is needed to support this
collaborative effort between the MathML and the chemistry community. We
feel and know that without the strong collaboration we have, and without
the input from the MathML community, it would be a detriment to the print
disabled communities. On our initial assessment of your request at our last
meeting, we have three examples of conventions we would like to see fully
implemented:





   - We feel elements and compounds should be read as letters, including
   the designation of the capital letter. Sodium (Na), for example, should be
   read “cap N a”. Chlorine (Cl) as “Cap C l”. Sodium chloride “cap N a cap C
   l”. Methane (CH4) as “cap C cap H sub 4”.



With regards to the question regarding elements and compounds being read
with their proper names we feel is a pedagogical question that should be
left up to the individual user to decide. If they wish proper names to be
spoken by their screen reader, this can be enabled by means of the custom
language dictionary that is offered by JAWS and NVDA.

We also feel strongly that units should be read as units. We imagine MathML
probably already has many unit designations already that we can leverage.
Chemistry content should be able to benefit from the same unit
designations.



   - Anything that is not disambiguated/defined in our table should also be
   read “as is,” as the letters they are defined.



We hope this clarification is the first step to a lengthier discussion on
optimization of disambiguation of chemistry content. It was our position
all along that the table we provided to the MathML group was a first step.
We welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss logical next steps
at future meetings. We welcome and highly value this collaboration between
the chemistry and math ML communities. If you would like to include this
type of topic as an agenda item for a future Chemistry Community meeting,
we are certainly happy to do so.



Thank you very much for your continued support of our community where we
value your input and feedback highly.

Cary







*From:* Neil Soiffer <soiffer@alum.mit.edu>
*Sent:* Sunday, August 30, 2020 12:35 AM
*To:* Supalo, Cary A <csupalo@ets.org>
*Cc:* Barrett, Dan <Dan.Barrett@hmhco.com>
*Subject:* Re: Request for phone meeting



The MathML CG talked about chemistry issues a little this week in the
context of a larger issue that we are trying to resolve. As I mentioned, a
subject area sets defaults, so most authors don't need to worry about
labelling every token. But there are defaults, so every token has a meaning
given to it by an attr (currently being called "semantics" but likely will
change).  For chemistry and for that matter, units, the issue came up: how
detailed are the attr values? For example, do we have semantics="units" or
do we have semantics="millimeters", etc. For chemistry, is it
semantics="element" or semantics="hydrogen", etc. I had thought everyone
was on board with "unit" and "element", but I was wrong, so this issue
needs to be hashed out. Because this needs resolution, it probably doesn't
make sense to discuss it at the chem CG call this week.



There is a question that you or maybe the group can answer... if I have
NaCl suitably marked up in MathML, should that always be 'spelled out' in
speech? If sometimes it should be "sodium chloride" in speech and maybe
sometimes "salt", who determines that? The author? The reader? The answer
to that question will inform a discussion about labelling them 'element'
(which would allow for various forms of speech) vs. specifically labelling
them 'hydrogen' or for that matter not labeling them at all so that the
letters are always just the letters.



    Neil