[Athen] STEM Accessibility guidance

[Kurkjian, Nazely]

Dear Colleagues,

We are trying to finalize guidance for our campuses regarding STEM Accessibility. We've proposed two benchmarks:

  1.  For web pages, use an equation editor that outputs MathML.
  2.  For documents and presentations, use an equation editor that supports accessibility.

The challenges are, not all browsers natively support MathML, and the software supporting math accessibility will not be supported by various operating systems and browsers. For example, the latest Mac OS will not support 32 bit architecture. However, MathType is 32 bit. So, if our computing labs or students' personal apple devices are updated, MathType will no longer be supported.

MathPlayer has reliance on software that is near end of life and end of security releases like Microsoft Explorer, which will raise concerns among CIOs who are trying to get their campuses off Windows 7 before security updates stop on January 16th.

We are a primarily Blackboard using System. Inside Blackboard, MathML is not supported, so MathType exports SVGs with automatically generated alt text.

MathML is also currently not supported by Wordpress.

And then, there are other markup languages beyond MathML for disciplines such as Chemistry.

How is your campus/systems addressing all of these challenges? What guidance do you provide faculty in creating accessible math?

Thank you,
Nazely

[circle]<http://www.suny.edu/>
Nazely Kurkjian, CPACC (she, her, hers)
Coordinator of Disability, Diversity, and Nontraditional Student Services
The State University of New York
State University Plaza - Albany, New York 12246
Tel: 518.445.4078    Fax: 518.320.1557
Be a part of Generation SUNY: Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/generationsuny> - Twitter<http://www.twitter.com/SUNY> - YouTube<http://www.youtube.com/generationsuny>


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