Towards a Universal Maths Conversion Library

Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Multimedia

Nowadays, teaching various subjects at school is successfully supported by information and remote technologies such as Google Class, Moodle and others. Nevertheless, students with special needs such as the visually impaired (BVI) face incredible barriers to using such remote technologies, especially with learning mathematics or physics. The main problem is that BVI uses different tools and techniques than their sighted peers, i.e., a different way of working with mathematical expressions or a lack of the possibility to edit graphics. Traditional methods such as the Brailler, figure models or cubarithms are still used. Another challenge is that there are entirely different systems of presenting formulas in different countries, so-called Braille mathematical notations. To overcome these barriers, we propose universal tools to assist sighted teachers and BVI students in remote training math using a multimodal form of editing of mathematical formulas. It consists of the simultaneous combination of three forms of presentation of math formulas in graphical form for the teacher, intelligent reading through speech synthesis and Braille mathematical notation for BVI. It is possible thanks to the use of intelligent converters between formats such as MathML, intelligent text and Braille and dedicated editors that allow for creating math documents by students and teachers. CCS CONCEPTS • Information systems → Synchronous editors; • Human-centered computing → Accessibility systems and tools; Interactive systems and tools; • Applied computing → Interactive learning environments.

ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies, 2004

We describe the UMA system, a system developed under a multi-institution collaboration for making mathematics universally accessible. The UMA system includes translators that freely inter-convert mathematical documents transcribed in formats used by unsighted individuals (Nemeth, Marburg) to those used by sighted individuals (LaTeX, Math-ML, OpenMath) and vice versa. The UMA system also includes notation-independent tools for aural navigation of mathematics. In this paper, we give an overview of the UMA system and the techniques used for realizing it.

This paper explains how to make scientific information more accessible to wide audience. It describes a practical system for scientific documents including mathematical formulas, named 'EXTRAFOR'. The system recognizes scanned images of clearly printed mathematical documents and outputs the recognition results in XML format which can be converted into various formats: LATEX, MATHML, HTML and Brailles Codes. With EXTRAFOR, we are not only able to extract mathematical formulas automatically from image of documents but also to read, parse and re-use them in other applications and contexts. This can be done for a variety of purposes. An example of small-scale use is a reading machine for the visually impaired. Large scale use arises in the scanning and interpretation of a large collection of mathematical documents, for the creation of a database. Here, we investigate the use of such system to communicate scientific information to people with a visual impairment.

In this chapter we review the state-of-the-art in non-visual accessibility of mathematics. Making mathematics accessible is a significant challenge, due to its 2dimensional, spatial nature and the inherently linear nature of speech and Braille displays.

MSOR Connections, 2007

Computers & Mathematics with Applications, 2012

We propose an automatic math expression reading system, called i-Math. i-Math is an educational tool, for blind and visually impaired (VI) students, to facilitate access to math materials. Although blind and VI students can access math documents/materials via many channels, e.g., human reader, math Braille codes, and audio (talking) books, these channels have limited availability. i-Math was designed to be an automatic reading aided tool and also a math learning and teaching tool for both students and teachers. i-Math operated with screen reader produce voice output on a computer. i-Math can read math documents aloud. Students can enjoy their newfound ability to read and practice math anytime and anywhere with i-Math while teachers can prepare their classroom handouts, assignments and exercises in audio version conveniently. The evaluation of i-Math was conducted with 78 blind and VI students and six teachers. The evaluation results indicate that math materials can be easily accessible to blind and VI students through i-Math and then, they can independently and comfortably study and practice their mathematics.

2006

ABSTRACT The study of mathematics is all but precluded to most blind students because of the reliance on visual notations. The Lambda System is an attempt to overcome this barrier to access through the development of a linear mathematical notation which can be manipulated by a multimodal mathematical editor. This provides access through braille, synthetic speech and a visual display. Initial results from a longitudinal study with prospective users are encouraging.

IEEE Access, 2021

There is no evidence that mathematical semantics cannot be understood due to blindness, the problem is the current access barrier to mathematical resources. In light of this problem, this survey aims at providing visually impaired persons (VIPs), or people close to them, with an overview of the currently available software tools for approaching mathematical content. These can be categorized into (a) tools for accessing mathematical documents (where VIPs are just consumers of content), and (b) tools that allow VIPs to become the creators of mathematical content and even to execute mathematical operations. We also explain the advantages and disadvantages of several key technologies used to interact with mathematics. Moreover, we discuss the necessity of the most common formats and languages behind these tools. Finally, we outline promising paths for future research and development towards blind-friendly mathematical resources. The authors hope that this survey may encourage researchers to engage with the still unsolved challenges of this topic. INDEX TERMS Assistive technologies, mathematics, visually impaired people. FELIPE GRIJALVA (Member, IEEE) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering and telecommunications from the Army Polytechnic School, Quito, Ecuador, in 2010, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering (major in computing engineering) from the University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil, in 2014 and 2018, respectively. He is currently Hourly-Paid Lecturer with the Universidad de Las Américas (UDLA), Quito. His research interests include spatial audio, machine learning and computer vision applications, and assistive technologies aimed at visually impaired people.

This paper describes the problems involved with learning and understanding math for vision impaired students and developing a computer system approach for rendering mathematical formulae into audio form. Access to mathematics is an obstacle for blind students. The lack of easy access to mathematical resources is a barrier to higher education for many blind students and puts them at an unfair disadvantage in school, academia, and industry [1]. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that there is great disparity between the math skills of students with disabilities and students without disabilities [2]. A methodology for rendering technical documents, in particular, complex mathematical formula, in an audio descriptive form (Mathspeak) is presented in this paper.

2015

In this study, we consider the expression methods of mathematical documents, for which the receiver is visually impaired, and the supplier is his/her support. The structure of an information graph is an important factor for the accessibility of the documents in this situation. We developed a software tool to express this structure for support and a tool to access this document for the visually handicapped. Moreover, we consider the information element for which we need some extra explanations. Proceedings of the 20th Asian Technology Conference in Mathematics (Leshan, China, 2015)