Documents with flexible notation contexts as interfaces to mathematical knowledge

In this paper we explore the use of documents as interfaces to mathematical knowledge. We propose an augmented document model that facilitates the explication of a document’s notation context, i.e. the selection of appropriate presentations for all symbols in the docu-ment. By separating the notation context from the structure and content of a document, we aim at identifying the author’s selection of notation, i.e. his notation practices. This facili-tates both, the identification of communities of practice (COP) that share specific notation preferences and, conversely, the adaptation of documents to the notation preferences of iden-tified COPs, e.g. groups of readers and co-authors. Furthermore, explicating a document’s notation context allows for referencing and, particularly, reusing contexts, which reduces the author’s workload during the authoring process.