The Math Interest Group is chartered to continue the task of
facilitating the use of mathematics on the Web, both for science and
technology and for education. This involves the maintenance of the recent
version 2.0 (Second Edition) of the MathML
specification (W3C Recommendation, 21 October 2003), encouragement of its
wider deployment, preparation of errata as appropriate, continued liaison
with other Working Groups within the W3C to ensure that the potential of
MathML is realized, and relations with other organizations, all designed to
strengthen the position of MathML and enhance the use of mathematics on the
Web.
This means that the use of MathML in Web documents is
encouraged by the W3C and should significantly contribute to the usefulness
of the Web for science, technology and education. The continuation of this
work on mathematics on the Web falls within the scope of the W3C Math Activity (see also the Math Activity statement).
- Maintaining the MathML 2.0 (Second
Edition) Recommendation.
- Explanation of the MathML 2.0 (Second
Edition) Recommendation as may be required.
- Ensuring ongoing compatibility between MathML and the new and evolving
W3C specifications.
- Contributing feedback and possible requirements to other W3C groups
suggested by specific and persistant problems encountered by MathML users
in areas such as character and entity name handline, validation, MIME
types and interoperability.
- Encouraging development of software that facilitates the creation,
display and use of documents using MathML for mathematics. Examples are
visual and audio browsers, translators from older encodings (such as
TEX and ISO 12083), validation tools and editors.
- Providing a forum for communities of practice, and a process through
which adopters of MathML can coordinate and reconcile differing
interpretations of the MathML specification.
- Providing expertise supporting the use of MathML in appropriate
contexts to express mathematics in W3C specifications.
- Suggesting mechanisms to improve on any deficiencies of the
specification noted in the use of MathML.
- Preparing possible requirements for future revisions and addenda to the
MathML specification.
Criteria for Success
- Maintenance of the W3C Math Web
site as a center for information on the use and deployment of MathML,
a W3C product.
- Maintenance of the W3C Math
Interest Group site for coordinating the creation and review of
documents and information under consideration for wider publication by
the interest group.
- Maintenance of the www-math mailing
list.
- Maintenance of the Test
Suite and Validation Services
for MathML provided at the W3C site.
- Preparation of reports on successful adoption and deployment strategies
for MathML on the Web and in XML work flows, as well as reports
identifying potential obstacles to successful adoption and deployment as
they may emerge.
- Continued full compatibility of MathML with relevant W3C
specifications.
- Expansion of acceptance and use of MathML.
This Interest Group commences in January 2004 and is scheduled to persist
24 months, terminating at the end of December 2005.
The Interest Group may create
- Working Draft documents which contain suggestions for updates or
extensions of the MathML specification and use of mathematics on the
Web.
- Tutorial and introductory materials to encourage adoption of the MathML
specification.
- Guidelines and documentation for implementors and adopters of
MathML.
- Promotional activity and materials on behalf of MathML.
The Interest Group will maintain
- A DTD for MathML, and possibly special variants of this
- An XML Schema for MathML, and possibly special variants of this
- A DOM API for MathML
- A Test Suite for MathML
- Character and character entity tables for mathematics
- Minutes of telephone conferences and face-to-face meetings.
Minutes of teleconferences and face-to-face meetings will also be
available from the Math Activity
page.
- Hypertext
Coordination Group
- The Math IG will coordinate its work at a high level with other
Groups primarily through participation in the Hypertext Coordination
Group where it is represented by its chair(s).
- XML Coordination Group
- The Math IG will coordinate its work in the XML sphere through the
XML Coordination Group.
- XML Working Group (XML
Schema, XLink, XML Protocol, XML Query, XML Encryption)
- The Math IG is naturally affected by changes to XML syntax. MathML is
written in XML 1.0, with the addition of XML namespaces. MathML is
presently described by both a DTD and schemas. However, the MathML
specification would benefit from a schema able to express formally more
of the constraints presently only expressible in the prose of the
specification. The topics of data types, replacement of character
entities and structural expressions are all of interest. In addition,
namespaces and MIME types have implications for the embedding of MathML
in browsers and other applications. Similarly, MathML uses XLink for
internal hyperlinking, and linking into and out of mathematical parts
of a Web document. Therefore, the expansion of the capacities of
linking and querying may interact with MathML. Whether the mathematics
of XML Encryption can usefully be expressed in MathML is of interest,
in the W3C spirit of using its own recommendations. There are already
on the Web a number of mathematical services: it seems entirely
appropriate to set out their Discovery, Description and Service
Integration according to the developing XML Protocols and attempts in
this direction continue.
- Document Object
Model (DOM)
- MathML content is accessible from the XML Document Object Model. The
Math IG is thus directly concerned with some details of the DOM. The
previous Math WG has made some of MathML's natural requirements known
and representatives collaborated on a DOM.
- W3C Web Accessibility
Initiative (WAI)
- The work of the Math WG was from the start intended to be helpful in
promoting the wider accessibility of mathematics, and MathML was
designed with that in mind. There are currently a number of projects
working on non-visual renderers for MathML. The Math IG is thus
interested fostering collaboration between these efforts, and the work
of the WAI WG.
- CSS Working
Group
- MathML continues to look to style-sheet and formatting mechanisms
under development for platform independent rendering of MathML. There
are demands upon CSS implicit in the requirements for MathML. In
particular, the Math IG will be working with the CSS Working Group on
the development of the Math module in
CSS3.
- XSL Working
Group
- Style-sheet mechanisms which can transform documents have been used
to get platform independent rendering of MathML. Again, there are
demands upon XSL implicit in the requirements for MathML. The XSL
Requirements Summary anticipates support of MathML.
- Multimodal Interaction
Working Group
- The new Multimodal Interaction Working Group is working on the use of
MathML within the Ink Markup
Language to express mathematical transformation. Other
specifications designed by this Working Group may also make use of
MathML, in particular focusing on the input of mathematics in various
modalities (speech or handwriting recognition.
- SVG
- The use of graphics in mathematics is commonplace at all levels, yet
the Math WG in developing MathML consciously left aside dealing with
drawing for mathematics. With the successful development of SVG, many
of the tools to do graphics for mathematics seem to be at hand. How
these are to be integrated with XHTML and MathML in practice remains to
be worked out in detail. The present Math WG produced a note on this
subject, but better use of graphics will require ongoing interaction
with the W3C Graphics activity, and in particular with SVG and any
corresponding future group working on three-dimensional graphics
specification.
- Semantic Web
Activity
- This initiative of the W3C offers more opportunities to use the
formal structures of the RDF to try and capture more of mathematics at
levels above that of a single formula, which is what MathML addresses.
It also suggests opportunities for significantly enhanced possibilities
for technical information retrieval and reuse.
- I18N
Working Group
- Mathematics is an international language, and may be incorporated in
documents in all natural languages. The Math IG must cooperate with the
internationalization efforts of the I18N Working Group. The character
model settled upon is important to mathematics. If examples of the use
of mathematical notation in conjunction with bi-directional writing
systems are found which are not fully compatible with MathML then
attention will be given to their requirements.
The Math Activity coordinates its work with other groups or organizations
insofar as they may be directly concerned with mathematics on the Web, or as
their activities may have a direct impact on the usefulness of MathML.
- The Unicode Consortium
and ISO WG2
- The Unicode Consortium and ISO WG2 have already been very responsive
to the needs of mathematics on the Web, and additions (in fact
thousands of character codes in Unicode 3.1 ad 3.2) have been made to
Unicode and ISO 10646 for the benefit of scientific document
preparation. Coordination with these groups will continue.
- OpenMath
- The OpenMath community, based around the OpenMath Society, and its
contracts under the European Community projects contributed to the
development of MathML 2.0. Contact with this community will
continue.
- The TEX
Community
- The previously dominant composition system in the academic community
has been TeX. In fact TeX can work well with MathML, either as an input
syntax which is widely known, or as a mathematical composition engine
with which much experience has been gathered. The TeX Users Group and
the LaTeX3 project has been kept informed of progress on the MathML
front. Fonts from the TeX community may be helpful in rendering MathML
in browsers. Projects for the conversion of legacy TeX material to
MathML have already been started, but are not yet of `production
quality'.
- STEP
- There is a large initiative supported by ANSI which aims at
formalizing the exchange of scientific, technical and engineering
information for manufacturing. In fact their section 50 is a way of
transcribing mathematical material, mostly geometrical. Its relation to
the Recommendation of MathML should be understood, and cooperation with
the STEP initiative, which is part of ISO standardization, undertaken
if appropriate.
- STIX
- The STIPUB group of Publishers of Scientific and Technical
Information is making available a public set of fonts to cover all
those characters in Unicode needed for their publishing needs.
It is hoped some face-to-face meetings can be arranged. One possibility
would be the third MathML
conference involving the MathML user community will be held, a sequel to
the very successful ones in October 2000 and June 2002.
A mailing list will be created for member-only discussions of the Interest
Group.
The archived mailing list www-math@w3.org
is used for public discussion of mathematical markup and related issues, and
IG members are encouraged to subscribe.
There is a public page on W3C Math
Activity, maintained by persons designated by the IG chair(s). It tracks
the evolving use of MathML, and supports it with information on
implementations, FAQ, and access to the MathML Test Suite and Validator.
There is also a Member-only Math
Interest Group page, maintained by persons designated by the IG chair(s).
The purpose of this page is primarily as a staging area for coordinating the
creation of documents by Interest Group members, and soliciting reviews by
W3C members, before such documents are published more widely, e.g. on the
public W3C Math Activity page.
One-hour phone conferences will be held at least monthly.
The Group works by consensus. In the event of failure to achieve
consensus, the Group may resort to avote
as described in the Process Document. If the issue is resolved by consensus
during the voting period, the vote is canceled.
Requirements for participation in the Math Interest Group are subject to
the requirements for all W3C Interest Groups set forth in Section
6.2.1 of the W3C Process Document. The Math Interest Group will be
comprised of participants which are W3C Member representatives, Invited
Experts, and W3C Team members. The Math Interest Group will not allow
participation by public
participants.
Participants are required not to disclose Member-only or Team-only
information obtained during participation, until that information is
otherwise publicly available, as specified in Section4.1
of the W3C Process Document.
The co-chairs of the Interest Group are expected to be Patrick Ion and
Robert Miner.
Requirements formeeting
attendance and timely response are described in the Process document.
Participation (meetings, reviewing and writing drafts) is expected to consume
time up to one day every two weeks.
W3C Members may also offer to review one or more working drafts from the
group for clarity, consistency, technical merit, fitness for purpose and
conformance with other W3C specifications. They are required to provide the
review comments by an agreed-upon date but are not required to attend
meetings.
W3C team ensures that the mailing lists and Group page are adequately
maintained. A W3C team member provides liaison between any non-team document
editors and the W3C team. The expected commitment from the W3C staff is
therefore 5% of a full time person.
At present Max Froumentin is providing the support and liaison mentioned
here.
The Math IG provides an opportunity to share perspectives on MathML and
mathematics on the Web. W3C reminds participants to disclose, where known,
the IPR status of information that they share in the Interest Group meetings
and materials, in accordance with
Section
6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
