DAISY Consortium Press Release: Mathematics Now Added to the DAISY Standard

The current DAISY/NISO Standard does not include an explicit method for including mathematics, however it does define how Modular Extensions can be added. The DAISY MathML Modular Extension working group has developed a solution for including mathemathics using a MathML extension, enabling full support for accessible mathemathics in the DAISY/NISO Standard.

MathML is a W3C XML application developed with accessibility to mathematics as a primary goal. It is now critical for the publishing, education and accessibility communities to begin supporting this new DAISY/NISO Mathematics Modular Extension, to ensure rapid industry-wide utilization of accessible mathemathics.

According to Dr. Neil Soiffer, who chaired the DAISY Working Group on Mathematics, "The group looked at many different alternatives to supporting math and came up with a solution that allows advanced players to provide access to mathematics that can be tailored to the needs of the reader while still providing a fallback mechanism so that basic players lose no functionality compared to today's access.  By using W3C's MathML recommendations as the representation for math, content authors and producers can leverage existing tools.  This will help to jump start the creation of accessible documents containing math and help foster the day when math content can be read by everyone."

George Kerscher, Secretary General for the DAISY Consortium, remarks that, "Now, with support for mathematics in the DAISY/NISO Standard, educational institutions have a comprehensive specification to adopt. The Consortium will be quickly developing additional documentation to assist content creators, such as usage guidelines and sample content. We expect to see integrated support in production tools very soon as well."

Chuck Hitchcock, Director of the NIMAS Technical Assistance Center at CAST, indicates that the publication of the DAISY Modular Extension for math is a welcome advance toward the universal design of math instructional content. "Now that DAISY has integrated a MathML vocabulary into its specification, publishers creating NIMAS-compliant files as part of federal IDEA requirements will soon be able to support a much greater level of accessibility and educational efficacy for elementary and secondary math textbooks."

"Now that MathML is officially part of the DAISY Standard, we have great hopes for continuing improvements in scientific literacy for people with print disabilities," said Jeff Gardner, CEO of ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. "The availability of scientific literature and math materials in MathML will greatly benefit the growing numbers of students with disabilities now pursuing careers in the sciences."

Further commenting on the implications of this development for scientific literacy, Joachim Klaus, Director of the Study Centre for the Visually Impaired Students at the Universitaet Karlsruhe (TH/Germany) remarks, "Internationalization and globalization characterize the Higher Educational teaching, learning and research system. Accessible information and communication technology are vital - we can't imagine our daily lives without it. Mathematic models and equations are used in all study and research fields. The extension of Digital Talking Books for Mathematics is therefore a milestone forward for the inclusion of all into the scientific community."

"The work of the MathML-in-DAISY committee is vital to the field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics for the disabled. Disabled people are among the most under-represented groups in the technical fields, and the improved access that DAISY enables should allow more and more disabled people to enter in to new career opportunities" comments David Schleppenbach, President of GH, LLC, a company that manufactures a MathML-aware DAISY software player.

For more information about the DAISY Modular Extension for Mathematics, see the MathML in DAISY website at http://www.daisy.org/projects/mathml/

For inquiries, please use the DAISY Contact Us form on the DAISY Web site.