Project 71: Open Math

This activity has been monitoring the progress of efforts to develop
improved methods for the digital representation of mathematical data
in order to facilitate 

(a) display of mathematics on the web, 
(b) the semantically correct exchange of mathematical information 
    among computation systems.

Examples of major efforts in this area are the Open Math Society and
the Math Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  NAG
and NIST have been closely involved in these efforts, and continue to
brief WG 2.5 on these activities and seek the guidance of members.

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Oxford 1996:
===========

The people are: Gentleman, Ford, Rice, and Stetter. Gentleman and
Stetter will prepare the descriptive paragraph.

Patras 1998:
============

Boisvert reviewed recent developments in this area and related
activities concerning the open exchange of mathematical text for
display and other purposes.

Purdue 1999:
============

Ford presented an overview of this project pointing out that it is
concerned with the exchange of mathematical information between
diverse applications and/or audiences. He noted that more specific
information can be found by following the appropriate links from the
NAG homepage, http:/www.nag.co.uk/

Ottawa 2000:
============

Boisvert presented a brief report pointing out that some of the
activity he reported in his Technical presentation (with respect to
the revision of the Handbook of Mathematical Functions) is relevant.
There is also a significant overlap with the activities of the MathML
efforts and this is also being monitored.

Amsterdam 2001:
===============

Carlisle's technical presentation and the ensuing discussion was
relevant to this project. It was agreed that we should continue to
monitor and participate in developments in this area.
 
Open Math and MathML
--------------------

Carlisle gave an overview of the history and relationships that exist
between the Open Math and MathML projects and activities. He discussed
some recent activities in each area and how these activities are
related to and how they could exploit developments (improvements) in
XML.

Portland 2002:
==============

Boisvert led a discussion of some activities of this active project.
MathML standard 2.0 has now been approved. There is some hope that web
browsers will adopt the standard but progress has been slow.

Strobl 2003:
============

Web Services: Putting Mathematics On The Net
--------------------------------------------

Ford presented a survey of the evolution and development of standards
and formats for communicating and understanding mathematics on the
web. The key technologies that make this possible were identified and
discussed and the progress toward establishing standards reviewed. The
roles of MathML, OpenMath and OMDOC were discussed and related
research and development projects identified.

Washington 2004:
================

The talks of Ford on "Numerical Algorithms for Posterity" and Miller
on "Representing Mathematical Knowledge in the Digital Library of
Mathematical Functions" presented at the Washington Workshop can be
considered to be reports of recent activity associated with this
project.

Hong Kong 2005:
===============

The funding for the EU project on Open Math, managed by NAG, is coming
to an end. However, the Open Math web page has recently been
revitalized and Open Math related activities are being reported, for
example in the Digital Library Project at NIST.

Prescott 2006:
==============

Boisvert's technical presentation "Digital Library of Mathematical
Functions" can be considered to be a report on some aspects of this
project.

Uppsala 2007:
=============

Boisvert pointed out that NAG and NIST were both very involved in this
project. There is a related ongoing activity concerned with the
revision of MathML.

Toronto 2008:
=============

Boisvert presented a brief report surveying recent activity in this
area. He discussed how MathML is being used and, in particular, how it
has been adopted and used in the preview edition of the Digital
Library released recently by NIST.

Raleigh 2009:
=============

Ron Boisvert's presentatation "Digital Library of Mathematical
Functions - Live" is a report in this area. 

After some discussion it was felt that the title and current focus of
this project was too narrow and that it would be best to terminate
this project and introduce a new, more general project 78,
Mathematical Knowledge Management, for which Open Math will be one of
the topics addressed.

Leuven 2010:
============

Ron Boisvert made a live presentatation of the now released "Digital
Library of Mathematical Functions".