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Use Cases

Real-world scenarios from NRW institutions using Git, CI/CD, and related tools

Category
Maturity
Institution
Research plan

Archiving at Zenodo

This use case describes the process of automatically archiving research results on Zenodo when a release is created in a repository. It also includes an option for manual submission. To ensure the long-term availability and citability of research results and to facilitate sharing with the research community.

TH Köln
Learning plan

Automated Programming Competition Platform with Leaderboard

Automates student programming competitions with GitLab CI/CD and a transparent leaderboard on GitLab Pages to increase engagement and provide immediate feedback.

University of Cologne
Research pilot

Collaborative Research Projects with External Partners

Researchers benefit from secure collaboration with international partners through temporary guest access, enabling global research cooperation while maintaining institutional security and data governance standards.

University of Cologne
Teaching pilot

Collaborative work with GitBook

A project to facilitate collaborative editing, version control, and publication of Open Educational Resources (OER) for training and lecture materials using GitBook and GitLab. To simplify the collaborative creation, ongoing maintenance, and public distribution of training materials and OER using GitBook, complemented by GitLab for open version control.

University of Münster
Teaching prototype

Conducting Exams with Divekit

Lecturers run fair, time‑controlled Git‑based exams via automated repository creation, unlock/lock, and preliminary pass checks, reducing manual effort and errors for larger cohorts.

TH Köln
Teaching pilot

Creating a module handbook

This use case describes the process for lecturers to create, standardize, and publish module handbooks efficiently. The module handbook is created, complies with the educational institution's guidelines, and has been made accessible to students.

TH Köln
Teaching pilot

Creating a teaching document

This use case describes the efficient and standardized creation of teaching materials by lecturers. The teaching document is created and available to students.

TH Köln
Learning prototype

Creating internship repositories

This use case describes how lecturers can easily and efficiently create repositories for internship groups. To simplify and automate the creation of repositories for internship groups.

TH Köln
Teaching pilot

Digital Teaching Materials

Organize lecture content in GitLab as separate lesson/week repositories or within a structured main repository. Materials (slides, text, examples) are written in Markdown or other formats, automatically built into a website via GitLab CI/CD, and published with GitLab Pages. Provides automated, versioned, and consistent delivery of teaching materials with controlled student access.

University of Cologne
Teaching pilot

Distribution of teaching materials via Divekit

This use case describes how lecturers can efficiently distribute teaching materials and monitor learning progress using Divekit. To efficiently distribute teaching materials, monitor learning progress, and improve the efficiency of teaching material management and quality assurance in teaching.

TH Köln
Teaching pilot

Game Development Projects with Large Asset Management using Git LFS

Students and instructors benefit from efficient version control of game development projects containing large assets like textures and models, using Git LFS to manage file sizes while maintaining full development workflow integration.

University of Cologne
Research pilot

GitLab as Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN)

This use case establishes GitLab as a secure, self-managed Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) for laboratory environments. By leveraging GitLab Issues, Markdown templates, and QR-code– based automation, the solution enables standardized, version-controlled, and audit-ready experiment logging without the necessity of external ELN platforms. The approach improves traceability, compliance, and operational efficiency using existing GitLab infrastructure.

University of Duisburg-Essen
Teaching pilot

GitLab Usage for Teaching and Research

Utilize GitLab for teaching and research purposes, providing enhanced features for agile planning, CI/CD pipelines, and user management. To provide a centralized GitLab-based platform that supports both teaching and research workflows, including agile planning, CI/CD pipelines, and secure user management.

University of Cologne
Learning plan

Hosting a Student Programming Competition

This use case enables universities to host programming competitions using a scalable and automated platform. It provides students with a hands-on opportunity to improve their coding skills while streamlining the evaluation process for instructors.

University of Cologne | RWTH Aachen University
IT & Admin pilot

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Automation Platform

A project to automate the provisioning, configuration, and management of IT infrastructure using code, enabling repeatable, reliable, and scalable infrastructure deployments across cloud and on-premises environments. To standardize and automate infrastructure management, reduce manual errors, accelerate environment provisioning, and enable version-controlled infrastructure changes.

University of Cologne
Teaching pilot

Integrating a question catalog

This use case describes how lecturers can efficiently create and manage tests and exercises by integrating question catalogs. To enable lecturers to successfully integrate question catalogs into their assessment systems for tests or exercises.

TH Köln
Teaching pilot

Java Submission and Exam System

Automates submission, grading, and feedback for Java assignments and exams using GitLab as the central platform and a secure Flex Client exam environment.

University of Cologne
Learning pilot

Master Thesis Project Repository Management and Supervision

Master's students and supervisors benefit from streamlined thesis project management with automated repository creation, collaborative supervision tools, and flexible privacy settings for code-based research projects.

University of Cologne
IT & Admin pilot

Nextcloud documentation

To generate additional documentation for the research management / collaboration software Nextcloud as static HTML pages applying pre-defined documentation templates. The input is simple markdown and the generation process uses the MkDocs module in GitLab. This project is a typical representation of a CI/CD pipeline based generation of static HTML pages used in domains comprising of developers, technical writers or To generate additional documentation for the research data

University of Duisburg-Essen
IT & Admin pilot

Non-Software Project Management for University Administration

This use case demonstrates how non-software teams, such as those in university administration, can use GitLab for structured project management, supported by ready-to-use templates, eliminating the need for separate, standalone tools.

RWTH Aachen University
Research pilot

Open Source Research Project Hosting and GitHub Migration

Researchers benefit from centralized open source project hosting on institutional GitLab infrastructure, enabling seamless GitHub migration, enhanced security controls, and improved collaboration while supporting open science initiatives.

University of Cologne
IT & Admin pilot

Providing a Container Registry

This use case outlines the need to provide an integrated container registry within the git.nrw platform. This allows developers, lecturers, and students to build, store, version, and distribute container images as part of their CI/CD workflows, avoiding the need for external, public registries like DockerHub. To enable the seamless storage and distribution of container images directly within GitLab, facilitating modern, secure software development and teaching standard industry workflows.

TH Köln
Teaching pilot

Provision of teaching materials

This use case describes how lecturers can easily provide training materials to a broad audience of learners and improve the quality of teaching through diverse learning materials. Training materials are automatically integrated and accessible to learners on the platform.

TH Köln
Research pilot

Research Data Repository Management with ARC Structure"

Researchers benefit from standardized data management using ARC (Annotated Research Context) structure in GitLab, enabling collaborative research data sharing, automated validation, and long-term data preservation with integrated metadata.

University of Cologne
Research pilot

Research Project Onboarding and Preservation

This use case provides a standardized process for research software projects to ensure their long-term preservation and reusability. It helps prevent the loss of valuable software when researchers leave by establishing clear guidelines for project setup, version control, and documentation.

RWTH Aachen University
Learning pilot

Thesis with LaTeX and GitLab

Draft and version a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD thesis with LaTeX in GitLab, enabling version control and CI/CD. Automates LaTeX builds and provides the final PDF as a build artifact, with optional milestone email notifications to the supervisor.

University of Cologne
IT & Admin pilot

Zammad-GitLab Ticket Synchronization

The Zammad-GitLab Ticket Synchronization project aims to streamline and centralize ticket and issue tracking between Zammad (ticketing platform) and GitLab. By automating the creation and synchronization of GitLab issues based on Zammad tickets, the system enhances development visibility, reduces manual overhead, and ensures cross-platform traceability. To automate the creation, update, and synchronization of GitLab issues from Zammad tickets, ensuring alignment across support and development workflows using native APIs and GitLab CI/CD.

University of Duisburg-Essen