Presentations

Schedule of Events

Abstract

As part of an ongoing effort to offer distance higher education, the University System of Georgia has selected WebCT as its online curriculum delivery vehicle. For the two math core-courses under development, Mathematical Modeling and College Algebra, MathML was chosen to enable the widest range of student users to correctly view the many equations' special symbols and characters across platforms and browsers.

College math faculty, acting as lesson authors, used Microsoft Word and its Equation Editor (a subset of MathType with which most faculty were experienced to some extent) to create lesson web pages containing mathematical expressions. These documents were peer-reviewed and edited, then converted to MathML using WebEQ, a shareware, cross-platform MathML generator.

Despite MathML's current lack of native support among the most popular web browsers (a free, Java-based WebEQ/MathML plug-in must be installed on each student's computer), preliminary results have been promising. MathML allows the presentation of accurate and identical mathematical equations and special characters with more flexibility and less overhead than representing equations with web graphics.

Specific issues involving visual layout and differing platform/browser behaviors will be addressed, as will suggestions for further refinements of MathML.