Many students use tools like Immersive Reader or VoiceOver to read written learning materials aloud to them. This includes students who are blind, but also those with low vision, dyslexia, and other situations where they can be more successful when the material is read aloud. This includes many students who do not have accommodations from SDAC and who may not have evident disabilities.

Math and science learning materials often contain formulas and other special notation that these technology solutions must be able to read correctly to be useful for those learners.

However, many math and science course materials cannot be read aloud by these technologies, either because they are presented in handwritten form, as images that are not described, or as PDFs built from source documents that use the TeX or LaTeX typesetting language.

There is no single pathway to universally accessible math and science materials, but LaTeX does present a number of challenges. At UVA, we invite instructors and students to try recommended approaches, such as those listed below, and share their experiences with colleagues and with us, so we can continue to refine these recommendations.