[Building Sakai] math editor for fckeditor

[Richwine, Brian L]

If work towards bringing math to Sakai is taking place, it would be great if the results were accessible. 

Accessible math (for screen-reader users for instance) still has a little ways to go. The only accessible paths I've seen supported involve using MathML. Browser plug-ins (like MathPlayer for IE) let users navigate and explore the equation audibly, can highlight math as it is spoken, and allow for in browser magnification of the equation. There are MathML-to-Braille translators which would make the work of folks who have to convert course materials for blink students into Braille much easier if the math was already in MathML.

LaTeX is really a printer markup language, and as a result, is not as purely semantic as MathML is. LaTeX codes for equations are frequently chosen from a standpoint of achieving a specific visual result, and often don't supply enough information semantically and hierarchically to make the relationships between terms clear.  Equations coded in MathML are semantically and hierarchically correct and machine readable and as such can be computed -- equations coded in LaTeX are predictable in their appearance but often are semantically and hierarchically ambiguous and thus are not machine readable for the purpose of computation.  Since equations coded as LaTeX aren't always machine readable, they also aren't in a format that adaptive technologies such as screen-readers can announce clearly and accurately to their users. It is our experience that LaTeX to MathML convertors (such as using MathJax with MathPlayer) fail to do an accurate job for this reason.  

Brian Richwine

Brian Richwine
Sakai Accessibility Working Group
Adaptive Technology Support Specialist
Adaptive Technology and Accessibility Centers
Indiana University - Bloomington/Indianapolis
http://iuadapts.indiana.edu
(812) 856-4112



-----Original Message-----
From: sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [mailto:sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of Qian, Zhen
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 12:50 PM
To: John Bush; sakai-user; Sakai-Dev
Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] math editor for fckeditor

John,

I think equation support can be divided into two parts: (1) the ability to render good quality image for equation in browsers and (2) the ability to support creating/editing LaTex/MathML equation.

As for part (1), I think the trend now is to use MathJax display engine(http://www.mathjax.org/), which support all browsers and both LaTex and MathML. Here is a previous discussion thread for replacing jsMath with MathJax: http://old.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--MathJax-to-replace-jsMath-in-rWiki--td29464530.html

For part (2), I haven't checked their licences or prices yet. Some plugins render equation images and embed into FCKEditor. DragMath (http://www.dragmath.bham.ac.uk/integrations.html) can output LaTex formatted string, which can be displayed by MathJax afterwards.

Part 1 seems to be a low-hanging fruit, and I hope that can solve at least 50% of user needs. Equation support is on our top to-do list here. We'd love to hear suggestions from other teams.

Thanks,

- Zhen
________________________________________
From: sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of John Bush [john.bush at rsmart.com]
Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 11:33 AM
To: sakai-user; Sakai-Dev
Subject: [Building Sakai] math editor for fckeditor

Is anyone doing anything to bring a math editor into sakai?  I know about jsmath for rwiki and sferyx for melete, but something that plugs into the fckeditor is the ideal, since that give the most widespread use.  I stumbled across I decent blog that talks about some of the options for moodle, but seems relevant to us as well.

http://www.stattler.com/blog/latex-equation-drupal-blog

This look like the best contender, as there is already a fckeditor plugin for this tool, check it out:

check this out, http://www.codecogs.com/pages/forums/pagegen.php?id=1639

Is anyone using this or an alternative, care to share experiences ?

--
John Bush
602-490-0470
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