RE: [office-accessibility] New DAISY math specification

["Steve Noble" <steven@dessci.com>]

Hi Rob,

 

Thanks for your question. I referred it to one of our MathML experts at Design Science, Neil Soiffer.  Neil's response is below. If anyone has additional questions, please let me know.

 

Steve Noble
Director of Accessibility Policy
Design Science, Inc.
E-mail: SteveN@DesSci.com
Phone: (502) 969-3088
http://www.dessci.com/accessibility

-----

There are only two potentially significant things about MathML in DAISY:

1. The altimg and alttext attributes on the "math" tag are not optional, they are required. We have a tool that will add them.

2. Only presentation MathML is allowed. If you want to use content MathML, it must be inside a semantics element as follows:

<semantics>

.<....> presentation MathML </...>

<annotation-xml encoding="MathML-Content"> content MathML </annotation-xml> </semantics>

Other than this, any valid MathML 2.0 is valid in DAISY.

Neil

-----

---

From: robert_weir@us.ibm.com [mailto:robert_weir@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 6:51 PM
To: Steve Noble
Cc: office-accessibility@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [office-accessibility] New DAISY math specification

ODF 1.0/1.1 uses MathML 2.0 (Second 
Edition).  Is that an acceptable version for straightforward translation 
into this DAISY extension? 

-Rob 

___________________________

Rob 
Weir
Software Architect
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration 
Software
IBM Software Group

email: robert_weir@us.ibm.com
phone: 
1-978-399-7122
blog: http://www.robweir.com/blog/ 

"Steve 
Noble" <steven@dessci.com> wrote on 03/29/2007 12:57:29 PM:

> 
FYI
> 
> Announced last week as the CSUN conference
> 
> 
http://www.dessci.com/en/company/press/releases/070321.htm
> 
> For 
Immediate Release
> 
> DAISY Consortium Adopts Modular Math 
Extension
> 
> New MathML-based extension will make math accessible 
to students with
> disabilities
> 
> LONG BEACH, Calif. - 
March 21, 2007 - The DAISY Consortium, an
> international industry 
standards organization, announced today that it
> has formally adopted the 
Specification for a Digital Talking Book
> Modular Extension for 
Mathematics. This development is a critical
> element for integrating 
accessible mathematics into DAISY and
> NIMAS-compliant digital content. 
Now that this specification has been
> published, it is important for the 
education and accessibility
> communities to begin incorporating it into 
textbook accessibility
> requirements.
> 
> As an active 
member of the DAISY Consortium, Design Science, Inc. has
> been 
instrumental in this development. "We're really pleased to be
> leading 
the effort to make math accessible to everyone," said Neil
> Soiffer, 
Chair of the DAISY MathML Modular Extension Working Group and a
> Senior 
Scientist at Design Science. "Design Science is the leading
> vendor for 
math authoring tools. Many of these can be used to create
> DAISY content 
and we have developed new tools to assist in the process
> of creating 
DAISY books."
> 
> "This is fantastic news for students and 
professionals with
> disabilities," said Steve Noble, Director of 
Accessibility Policy for
> Design Science. "Now that accessible math is 
part of the DAISY Standard,
> the future is really bright for students who 
have been yearning to study
> math and science subjects-and even make a 
career out of it-but have
> always been hit hard by the absence of 
accessible materials. Now those
> days are over."
> 
> Vendors 
are moving swiftly to support the new specification in DAISY
> 
applications. The specification also provides for backward
> 
compatibility, so older DAISY players will be able to use newer content,
> 
albeit without being able to take advantage of all the new capabilities
> 
of math materials written to the new standard.
> 
> Although the 
current DAISY/NISO Z39.86-2005 Digital Talking Book
> Standard has been 
widely adopted by the accessibility community, the
> only available method 
of integrating math content relied on using images
> with alt text tags. 
Alt text tags for math equations provide only the
> most limited level of 
accessibility and are very difficult to author in
> a consistent manner. 
Using MathML allows all of the valuable features of
> a digital talking 
book to work for math just as it does for literary
> text, like support 
for large print, customizable speech, Braille,
> navigation, and 
synchronized highlighting.
> 
> The Specification for a Digital 
Talking Book Modular Extension for
> Mathematics is available on the DAISY 
website at
> 
http://www.daisy.org/projects/mathml/mathml-in-daisy-spec.html
> 
> 
For further information, see also the DAISY Consortium Press Release at 
> 
http://www.daisy.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsId=296 
> 
> About 
MathML
> MathML is an XML-based language for representing mathematics that 
was
> published as a Recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 
in
> 1998. Since MathML captures the meaning and structure of mathematics, 
it
> enables a wide range of applications. In addition to making it 
possible
> to have math spoken to print disabled readers, it also enables 
searching
> for mathematical expressions within content and 
interoperability with
> the growing number of computational applications 
that understand MathML.
> For more information about MathML see 
http://www.w3.org/Math/
> 
> About the DAISY Consortium
> The 
DAISY Consortium was founded in 1996 and consists of a growing
> 
membership of organizations around the world committed to developing
> 
equitable access to information for people who have a print disability.
> 
DAISY's vision is that all published information, at time of release to
> 
the general population, be available in an accessible, highly
> 
functional, feature rich format and at no greater cost, to persons with
> 
print disabilities. For more information about the DAISY Consortium see
> 
http://www.daisy.org/
> 
> About Design Science, Inc.
> 
Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Long Beach, California, Design
> 
Science develops software used by educators, scientists and publishing
> 
professionals, including MathType, Equation Editor in Microsoft Office,
> 
WebEQ, MathFlow, MathPlayer and TeXaide, to communicate on the web and
> 
in print.
> 
> ###
> 
> Design Science staff available 
for interviews:
> Steve Noble, Director of Accessibility Policy, 
steven@dessci.com
> Neil Soiffer, Senior Scientist, 
neils@dessci.com
> 
> Press Contact: 
> Bruce Virga
> 
Vice President, Sales
> +1(800)827-0685
> +1(562)432-2920
> 
Design Science, Inc.
> 140 Pine Avenue, 4th Floor
> Long Beach, CA 
90802
> USA