Recap of the DSF Spring School 2025

Over three days, 20 committed members of the DSF community gathered at Heilbronn University for the DSF Spring School 2025.

Participants of the DSF Spring School 2025 at the Tech Campus Heilbronn (Friday, April 4, 2025)

Day 1 – Wednesday, April 2, 2025

On the first day of the DSF Spring School, participants received a concise introduction to the DSF. The presentation covered the core components of the DSF, all developments made so far, as well as the existing process plugins.

During an introductory round, participants had the opportunity to get to know each other better. Among them were domain experts, DSF power users, and process plugin developers, who worked in small groups on various DSF-related topics and exchanged ideas within the community. Some participants learned about process plugin development through a guided tutorial, others worked on various tools and process plugins as part of the hackathon, and still others developed concepts for applying the DSF to new use cases.

Participants also had repeated opportunities to take part in focused working sessions, where topics such as monitoring, process plugins, use cases, and more were discussed and further developed to deepen understanding. The first day concluded with a group dinner at Pier 58.

Hands-on session with DSF Community

Day 2 – Thursday, April 3, 2025

The second day of the DSF Spring School delved even deeper into the topic of process plugins and DSF APIv2. The focus was on more advanced topics such as consent and pseudonymization, networks within networks, handling large image and data sets, as well as the extensibility and interchangeability of plugins. These in-depth insights enabled participants to expand on the knowledge they had already gained and explore new perspectives on process plugins.

The afternoon and evening of the second day were dedicated to the theme of “Community Exchange.”
The program continued with a series of engaging community talks. Dieter spoke about the further development of the feasibility process plugin to enable “networks within networks.” Mathias shared insights on how to implement a process plugin so that it can be used across different contexts and projects. Reto provided an exciting look into dev and test setups for process plugin development.

These community talks marked the beginning of the more relaxed part of the "Hackend." Over delicious pizza, refreshing drinks, and plenty of fun, participants had lots of opportunities for networking, exchanging ideas, and casual coding sessions. The Spring School not only helped participants expand their individual expertise but also strengthened the sense of community within the DSF network!

Day 3 – Friday, April 4, 2025

The last day was all about the final sprint of the hackathon.The groups continued working intensively on their plugins and projects. There was also a dedicated session on secure deployment and build reproducibility, allowlist management, and handling certificates. To wrap things up, all participants came together for a group photo and a brief recap of the past three days. A heartfelt thank you goes out to all participants for their dedication and creative contributions, which made the DSF Spring School 2025 a truly great experience!

Final push at the DSF: Participants continue to develop their concepts, plugins, and more!