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Introduction

I am a blind undergraduate studen in mathematics. I use screen reading software, which uses synthesized speech to read aloud the contents of the screen, to read and write math.

Due to the limitations in presentation-focused formats like PDF and MathJax, screen readers can't properly handle most mathematical content contained in them.

This means that for the most part, I can only properly access math documents in their source format, like LaTeX; this severely limits the resources have access to for studying. Thankfully, there are some excellent online math resources that include content sources, like Wikipedia and NLab, but sometimes these aren't enough on their own to learn a topic well.

Sometimes I've had luck reaching out to kind lecturers and publishers about particular textbooks, which they were able to provide in source format; but in general it's very hard to find other good learning resources available in source form.

One other good resource is Arxiv, which often allows you to download the source of an article, but it's very hard to search through the mountains of articles specifically for educational resources.

The Request

What would be really nice is a comprehensive listing by topic of educational math resources that people have made available online in source form; and this is what I would like this question to become.

So: if you have (or know of) lecture notes, textbooks, or the like, that are available online in source form, via Arxiv, or somewhere else, then post it as an answer, and I will keep the question updated with a categorized list. (Note: There is no special processing needed to make LaTeX screen-reader-friendly.)

Thank you in advance for making the lives of blind mathematics students easier.

P.S. I hope that this is an appropriate place to make this post; sorry in advance if it isn't.

YCor
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Hussain Kadhem
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    Do you have a reasonably robust workflow to turn random LaTeX code from arXiv into screen reader friendly material? It'd be great if I could make available accessible versions of my lecture notes without messing with the TeX (too much). (Most of my notes in English are on arXiv anyway, but the German ones might be of interest to somebody as well.) – Christian Clason Jan 17 '20 at 23:31
  • Also, you can try this search for lecture notes on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/search/advanced?advanced=1&terms-0-operator=AND&terms-0-term=lecture+notes&terms-0-field=comments&classification-mathematics=y&classification-physics_archives=all&classification-include_cross_list=exclude&date-filter_by=all_dates&date-year=&date-from_date=&date-to_date=&date-date_type=submitted_date&abstracts=show&size=50&order=-announced_date_first – Christian Clason Jan 17 '20 at 23:40
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    There's nothing you need to do, really. If you use macros defined in a separate file then it helps to make that available as well (not a problem on Arxiv), but it's otherwise already screen-reader friendly. I've read tons of unprocessed LaTeX lecture notes from my professors and never had a screen reader or comprehension issue with them. – Hussain Kadhem Jan 18 '20 at 00:21
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    More likely this finds a better audience at matheducators.stackexchange, but let's see what turns up here in the next little while. Gerhard "Can Always Migrate It Later" Paseman, 2020.01.17. – Gerhard Paseman Jan 18 '20 at 00:46
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    Perhaps of interest: a very recent (one day ago) announcement about producing math texts in Braille: https://aimath.org/aimnews/braille_full/. – Zach Teitler Jan 18 '20 at 01:42
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    I'm not sure this is technically on topic, but I think that it's a great question and I hope it survives. (It's at least as much on topic as the digital-pen question, for example.) – LSpice Jan 18 '20 at 02:11
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    Concerning arXiv, it has far too many entries every day to permit easy access; but the subject labels provide a good short list if your interests are specific enough. – Jim Humphreys Jan 18 '20 at 03:15
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    I think this question is great: not only could it lead to a useful resource, but it made me aware of a zero-effort way to make my lecture notes more accessible which I hadn't thought of before. I'll share this idea with my colleagues. – Jonny Evans Jan 18 '20 at 12:30
  • Out of curiosity, what is the specific problem with MathJax? Are there other math-enabled HTML formats that are usable? What about Unicode math characters? I personally find the mathematics community's dependence on compiled PDFs frustrating and I had assumed that HTML-like formats would be more disability-accessible. – Elizabeth Henning Jan 19 '20 at 00:38
  • To be clear, MathJax is a lot better than PDF. The screen reader I use (Gnome Orca), for example, will properly read through most expressions on Wikipedia as a single unit, which is good enough for a lot of less equation-involved content. The problems arrise when you try to read through expressions at a more granular level, at which point the support gets spotty between the different screen readers. Orca stops presenting structure information, for example; (1/) – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 01:37
  • For example, if I'm trying to read through a long solution of an equation in an aligned environment, with nested fractions, roots, and super/subscripts; I can either listen to the whole thing at once with the structure properly presented (this is not great as you can imagine), or I can read one cell at a time but not get any structure information (announcements of subscripting, fractions, etc). (2/) – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 01:37
  • One great thing about MathJax is that the source is necessarily there for you to read it; but then you either have to copy and clean up the page into a text editor and move back and forth (when you copypaste MathJax pages into a text editor, it pulls out flattened and newline-stripped LaTeX source right next to the flattened unicode in a jumbled mess); or go into the page source and read the math alongside the HTML (often messy).

    In short: MathJax is much better, and it's getting better all the time, but at this point it's still often a frustrating reading experience. (3/)

     – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 01:37
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    Unicode math characters individually are pretty well-supported by screen readers now.

    One great way to represent math in HTML pages that some blogs use (Gowers's and Tao's, in particular) is to embed it as pictures with the LaTeX source as the alt-tag. When you copy and paste the whole page into a text editor, or just disable images, you get a pretty seemless reading experience. I've found this to be the most pleasant HTML math presentation method, actually. (4/4)

     – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 01:38
  • Also, thanks all for the support and the helpful Arxiv searching tips. – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 01:41
  • One observation about Arxiv that some have already pointed out is that even most of the lecture notes on there are on very specific topics, like the kind that would be presented at shorter seminar courses. If you do have lecture notes about full semester-long or year-long courses, which are much rarer, that you are willing to share the source of (or already have), then that would be especially helpful for undergraduate students.

    As a personal example: I'm currently on the lookout for a good introductory learning resource on representation theory, and I haven't found any so far on Arxiv.

     – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 01:48
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    @Zach Teitler That looks like a really awesome project!

    Though, on a related note, it might be a useful observation to make for the curious that Braille isn't a very convenient learning medium for university students. It takes up a lot of space, and takes longer to read, which are both significant problems for students having to lug books around campus and keep up with a fast-paced multiple-class workload. (1/)

     – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 02:04
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    For example, I was able to get Dummit and Foot's Abstract algebra Brailled through my university, but it took up more than 30 volumes that I had to somehow transport to and fit in a small off-campus shared apartment (It was not easy or pleasant). My university also only fulfills Brailling requests for required course textbooks, so I'm out of luck in that regard for recommended readings, alternate references, or topics I want to self-study. (2/2) – Hussain Kadhem Jan 19 '20 at 02:06
  • I feel sorry that there's still no answer for this important question after 1.5 years. I lack reputation for adding a bounty, but pherhaps another user could do so? – Neinstein Jun 27 '21 at 10:21

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