Building a TOGAF Based Ontology of HERM

10 pages•Published: November 6, 2025

Markus von der Heyde, Andreas Hartmann and Matthias Goebel

Abstract

Integrating ontologies, which structure knowledge for the Semantic Web, Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) standards such as TOGAF® provide a robust foundation for guiding digital transformation in complex ecosystems. The Higher Education Reference Models (HERM), a widely adopted Enterprise Reference Architecture in higher education institutions, serve as a structured framework worldwide. This paper presents the development of a comprehensive RDF-based ontology for HERM, firmly aligned with TOGAF's Metamodel. It details the ontology's class hierarchies, the challenges of semantic mapping to TOGAF, and the automated transformation process from HERM spreadsheets into RDF representations. The ontology captures English and German terminology, with built-in support for additional languages. All results, including tools and ontology files, are made available via Zenodo, ensuring accessibility and further development within the HERM community.

Keyphrases: enterprise architecture, higher education reference models (herm), ontology engineering, rdf transformation, semantic mapping, togaf metamodel

In: Laurence Desnos, Raimund Vogl, Lazaros Merakos, Carmen Diaz, Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan (editors). Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast, vol 107, pages 262-271.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/xVWK
	https://doi.org/10.29007/5cjg

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{EUNIS2025:Building_TOGAF_Based_Ontology,
  author    = {Markus von der Heyde and Andreas Hartmann and Matthias Goebel},
  title     = {Building a TOGAF Based Ontology of HERM},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast},
  editor    = {Laurence Desnos and Raimund Vogl and Lazaros Merakos and Carmen Diaz and Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Computing},
  volume    = {107},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2398-7340},
  url       = {/publications/paper/xVWK},
  doi       = {10.29007/5cjg},
  pages     = {262-271},
  year      = {2025}}

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