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This paper discusses the creation of a common framework to describe online laboratories according to the semantic web technology. The so called Web 3.0 technology is actually growing daily and is proposed to be one of the leading Web technologies within the next years. Improved search mechanisms and facet based browsing are only some key features which enhance the data handling within the repository. Online laboratories are interactive experiments which are available over the Internet and can be divided into two main groups, software simulations and laboratories made up of real hardware equipment. Technology-enhanced learning is becoming a new important trend in higher education worldwide. In particular, engineering education is becoming an exciting emerging field of research because it involves a multitude of disciplines which aim to resolve the pedagogical problems that arise with the advancement of technology. With the help of the semantic web technology it can be made a significant step forward in terms of a general description model for online laboratories and the location of laboratories with requested properties

This work aims to contribute to the creation of networks of online laboratories by proposing the model of a scalable and general purpose laboratory server and its integration into the iLabs network. The lab server has been designed to control heterogeneous devices and can be easily adapted to different fields of application. The communications between the laboratory server and the end user interfaces, and between the laboratory server and the devices are completely mediated by web services. The server model has been applied to the development of an online laboratory on Digital Signal Processing. The laboratory is now part of the iLabs network. The task of integration into the network has stimulated the development of a new interface that minimizes the changes to be done on existing lab servers to join the iLabs network and makes integration independent of server technology. The new interface, named LabProxy, contributes to the iLab Shared Architecture (ISA) and has been included in the software repository of iLabs.