OLOUD - an ontology for linked open university data

Abstract

The Ontology for Linked Open University Data (OLOUD) is a practical approach to model course information at a typical Hungarian university. OLOUD aims to integrate data from several sources and provide personal timetables, navigation and other types of help for students and lecturers. The modeled domains include curricula, subjects, courses, semesters and personnel, but also buildings and events. Although there are several ontologies for the mentioned domains, selecting a set of ontologies fitting our use case was not an easy task. We summarize problems we met such as missing links, inconsistencies as well as many overlaps between ontologies. Finally, OLOUD acts as a glue for a selection of existing ontologies, and thus enables us to formulate SPARQL queries for a wide range of practical questions of university students.