1. A computing device comprising: an interface to receive a plurality of encoded data slices from a plurality of different storage units included in a vault of a distributed storage network, each of the encoded data slices associated with a pillar having a respective pillar number, and encoded using an encoder algorithm including an encoding function and at least one encoder constant; memory; a processing module operably coupled to the interface and the memory, wherein the processing module is operable to implement: a decoder to recover the at least one encoder constant and determine the encoder algorithm using the plurality of encoded data elements, the respective pillar number, and the encoding function, wherein the at least one encoder constant is recovered using more than one of the plurality of encoded data slices; the decoder further to decode the plurality of encoded data slices to generate a decoded data element using the encoding algorithm.