Show Off Your Skills in the 2026 BTAA Love Data Week Data Visualization Championship!

The University of Iowa is participating in the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Data Viz Championship to celebrate International Love Data Week! 

We are hosting an internal competition that is open to students, faculty, and staff. All entries will be evaluated based on competition guidelines, and the top visualization for each of the two groups (faculty/staff and students) will be submitted to the BTAA to compete against other big ten schools. Winners will also gain recognition for their efforts in university media, receive swag and prizes, and be eligible for BTAA-level amenities.

Requirements for Students:

Students must use the specific BTAA-selected dataset on college fight songs! They can access a CSV file of the data on FiveThirtyEight's GitHub repository here. Standard visualizations like bar charts, scatter plots, and heat maps are encouraged, but students are also encouraged to use creativity to attract attention to the information they want to highlight in the data. Visualizations will be judged on design and presentation, clarity of communication, creativity and innovation, and audience understanding and insight. Additional guidelines:

• Visualizations must be accessible via a link that requires no login at the time of the challenge voting/judging,
• Students can collaborate together, and all contributors must be credited; one person should be identified as the primary presenter,
• Have fun and be creative!   

Requirements for Faculty and Staff:

Faculty and staff are judged on the same criteria and can use the same types of visualizations as the student competitors and are likewise encouraged to use creativity to draw attention to their visualization skills. Alternatively, they can use any data from the University of Iowa or from all the institutions in the BTAA on any theme of their choice (i.e., athletics, enrollment data, etc.). You can also submit an existing visualization used at your institution. Visualizations can pertain to the institution as a whole or to a specific initiative or population. Additional guidelines:

• All submissions must follow institutional data policies and guidelines,
• Visualizations must be accessible via a link that requires no login at the time of the challenge voting/judging,
• Faculty and staff can collaborate together, and all contributors must be credited; one person should be identified as the primary presenter.

How to Submit Visualizations

Please submit your visualization entries here. The deadline to submit is January 16, 2026. 

Competitors can reach out with questions at the same email addressed linked above.