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Data Viz Championship – Big Ten’s Love Data Week

Rutgers students, faculty, and staff are invited to participate in the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s Love Data Week (February 9–13, 2026). Create a compelling data visualization, compete for Rutgers’ top spot, and represent the university in the Big Ten Data Viz Championship Showcase.

Love Data Week (Feb. 9–13, 2026) is an international event bringing Big Ten partners together for virtual sessions on smarter strategy, storytelling, and decision-making. Explore themes, tools, and past recordings on the Love Data Week website. Rutgers Libraries will also host events during the week, with more details to come.

This year, Rutgers is joining in with a campuswide Data Viz Championship—organized by Enterprise Analytics, Rutgers Libraries, and IDRIS Newark, and facilitated by the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA)—to name two winners: one student and one faculty/staff.

Student instructions

Students are invited to submit a public, link-accessible data visualization by January 21. Full requirements are as follows:

  • Students must use the provided sample dataset on college fight songs, which can be downloaded below.
  • Any data visualization tool is permitted as long as the result is accessible via a public link (no login required).
  • Collaboration is encouraged; all collaborators must be credited.
  • If selected for the showcase, one collaborator must be designated as the presenter.

Download sample dataset: FiveThirtyEight Fight Songs

Additional information: Data Set Description

Submit your visualization: go.rutgers.edu/data-viz-submission

Faculty and staff instructions

Faculty and staff are invited to submit a public, link-accessible data visualization by January 21. Full requirements are as follows:

  • The viz should be used for something related to the Big Ten (e.g., athletics, enrollment data, etc.), public research the creator is involved in, or information about the institution—be it the institution as a whole or a specific initiative/population.
  • All submissions must follow the school’s institutional data policies and guidelines (i.e., please do not submit a viz with Social Security Numbers or HIPAA information). 
  • Any data visualization tool is permitted as long as the result is accessible via a public link (no login required).
  • Faculty and staff should credit all involved as authors of the work.
  • If selected for the showcase, one collaborator must be designated as the presenter.

Submit your visualization: go.rutgers.edu/data-viz-submission

 Additional information

  • During the initial round, entries will be evaluated by a panel of Rutgers faculty and staff judges using the BTAA scoring rubric.
  • There will be a student first place winner, two runners up, and a faculty/staff winner; winners of the initial round will receive prizes provided by Rutgers Libraries.
  • The student and faculty/staff winning entries will then be moved to the BTAA showcase to compete with entries from the other BTAA schools in a blinded competition.
  • A BTAA panel of faculty/staff judges from multiple institutions will select the best BTAA student and faculty submissions using the scoring rubric; these winners will receive the official BTAA Data Viz Champion title.

Any questions regarding the Data Viz competition should be directed to Laura Palumbo at laura.palumbo@rutgers.edu.