Work on Math is being managed as part of W3C's User Interface Domain.
Activity statements provide a managerial overview of W3C's work in this area. They are designed to be read from beginning to end, to be informative and interesting. The role of W3C is given, also the benefits to the Web community, accomplishments to date and a summary of what the future holds. Background reading pages to help set the scene and explain any technical concepts are in preparation. Where necessary these also contain a short tutorial.
W3C has brought together key players to fill an urgent need for math on the Web. Out of this work has come the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML), a format enabling authors to present mathematical expressions on the screen, as well as forming the basis for machine to machine communication of math on the Web. Written in XML, MathML provides two sets of tags, one for the visual presentation of math and the other associated with the meaning behind equations. MathML is not designed for people to enter by hand but anticipates that specialized tools will provide the means for typing in and editing mathematical expressions. MathML 1.0 has recently been issued as a W3C Recommendation.
Following a panel discussion on math at the 4th International WWW Conference in Darmstadt in April 1995, a group was formed to discuss the problem caused by the lack of support for scientific communication on the Web. In the intervening two years, this group grew, to be formally reconstituted as the W3C Math working group.
The Math Working Group currently includes representatives from Adobe, the American Mathematical Society, Design Science, Elsevier Science, The Geometry Center at the University of Minnesota, HP, IBM, INRIA, SoftQuad, Waterloo Maple Inc. and Wolfram. Its overall goals have been to develop an open specification for math to be used with Web pages, such that it should:
Provide for dynamic mathematical expressions
HTML Math should be flexible enough to provide for dynamic interaction with mathematical expressions, to substitute values, apply transformations, draw graphs, animate formulae and so on. There is great potential for rich interactive learning materials as compared with traditional paper based course work.
This invoves a consideration of the meaning of equations and their representation. Certainly the more serious packages currently used outside of the Web capture significant parts of the knowledge of experienced mathematicians and are able act as a mathematician's assistant.
In general, a tool which represents meaning in math lends itself more easily to rendering on different platforms. The underlying meaning of equations remains a commonality even if the equations themselves are rendered with different software on different computers.
Be rich enough to describe the visual complexity of advanced mathematics.
There are certain regularities associated with writing maths: the use of spacing, the positioning of scripts, which symbols are italicised, and so on. People want to have the rich control on the Web that they are used to on paper with packages like LATEX.
It needs to be structured enough to facilitate rendering to other media, such as speech.
It should be feasible to add to the core language, for instance with downloadable extensions.
MathML was chosen by the Math Working Group as their application to define an XML compliant markup language for describing equation content and presentation. What is MathML actually like? You can find out by looking at a small example of MathML. There are already a number of applications for viewing and processing MathML, for instance, W3C's Amaya browser/editor allows you to edit/view MathML's presentation tags.
The current Math Working Group will finish its work in summer 1998 having successfully issued MathML 1.0 as a W3C Recommendation. A proposed new working group is positioned as a continuation of the present Math Working Group and would be chartered within the W3C User Interface Domain. This new group would continue the task of facilitating the use of math on the Web, both for scientific documentation and for education. This will involve:
The development of a next version of the MathML specification
Maintenance of and encouragement of the use of the present MathML 1.0 Recommendation
Continued liaison with other Working Groups within the W3C to ensure that the potential of MathML is realized
Talking to other organizations with view to strengthen the position of MathML and the use of math on the Web.
Making sure that other newly developing W3C specifications promote the implementability and usefulness of MathML.
Working with Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) experts on the realization of audio rendering of MathML.
Cooperation with OpenMath effort, as realized in the European Esprit project and through the The North American OpenMath Initiative on the other side of the Atlantic.
Encouraging development of software that facilitates the creation of documents using MathML for math. Examples are translators from older encodings, such as TeX and ISO 12083, and customized input syntaxes and editors.
Work on extension mechanisms to incorporate new math into MathML.
The following are some of the accomplishments of the Math Working Group to date:
MathML was released as a W3C Recommendation on the 7th April 1998. It defines an XML compliant mark-up language for describing equation content and presentation. The specification is now being reviewed and voted upon by W3C members, and the W3C Director's decision on MathML is expected on the 7th April 1998.
We have set up a HTML Math discussion list
We have also set up an HTML Math Interest Group. If you would like to become part of the W3C Math Interest Group, contact the working group co- chairs.
The new group will create one or more Working Drafts test documents, culminating in a revision of MathML 1.0 specification advanced as a Proposed Recommendation for a MathML 2.0 Specification. We will also issue guideline documentation for implementors of MathML and promotional activity and materials on behalf of MathML.
This group will commence at the beginning of September 1998 and is expected to continue work for 18 months, terminating in February 2000.
With XML: The Math WG is naturally affected by eventual changes to XML syntax. MathML's revision will be written in XML 1.0, with the addition of XML namespaces, as far as is possible.
with DOM: MathML content will be accessible from the XML Document Object Model. The Math WG is directly concerned with some details of the DOM. The present Math WG has made some of MathML's natural requirements known.
With the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): the aim will be to help in promoting the wider accessibility of math; indeed MathML 1.0 was designed with this in mind. It is hoped that now a real implementation of an audio renderer for MathML can be achieved through collaboration with the WAI WG and suitable implementors.
With The XLL Working Group The MathML revision format will use the results of the XLL group for internal hyperlinking, linking into and out of mathematical parts of a Web document.
Style sheets: The Math WG looks to the style sheet mechanism under development for platform independent rendering of MathML. Again, there are demands upon CSS&FP; implicit in the requirements for MathML.
Dave Raggett, Math Activity lead, Visiting Engineer from HP
Last modified $Date: 1998/06/22 14:48:09 $