Wiris pushes against the lack of accessible STEM content.
Our platform uses the MathML standard to be accessible for everybody.
One of the biggest obstacles for the educational community is the lack of accessible STEM content as well as the absence of adequate tools to create said materials. STEM is the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, an area of education specialized in interdisciplinarity and application of science and mathematics.
STEM content accessible for people with vision impairments are not common. Although nowadays there are many tools to generate accessible materials, the problem lies in the few options available for the creation of accessible and adequate resources for STEM classes. This creates many obstacles for disabled Stem professionals to make their content available for everyone.
Luckily there are successful initiatives that mitigate this problem. Wiris has built MathType in a way that is totally navigable with the keyboard and fully compatible with the majority of the screen-readers in the market, which allow people with visual impairments to be guided by an off-voice. Thus, Wiris makes sure its products are accessible to everybody.
These accessibility options work for both the process of creating STEM content, and of using and working with it. Besides, WirisQuizzes is also built so that the students can answer exam questions in a fully accessible and autonomous way.
Available for your computer and on-line.
MathType works both for the desktop framework(text editors), and for on-line services(Google services and most LMS platforms), thus making it the most advanced mathematical authoring tool in the market. MathType can achieve this goal by automatically adding alternative text to the created equations, adding it in the HTML code when you are working in a web platform, or to the images when you work with the desktop app.
In addition, all Wiris products are based on the MathML standard, a coding language that incorporates both the structure and the content of the mathematical expression. Many screen-readers are equipped with MathML format reading capability, which makes Wiris accessible in the majority of devices. Moreover, the MathML language has many features that make it very useful for people with disabilities.
For its ease of navigation with the keyboard and its use of the MathML language, MathType has created a new accessibility standard in mathematical tools both for students and professionals.
Sources:
- Wiris documentation: Wiris products accessibility
- Wiris documentation: MathType accessibility
- W3C: What is MathML?
- W3C: How to meet WCAG
