2026 Love Data Week BTAA Data Viz Competition

Update: UMN Data Viz Competition Winners Announced

Student Category Winner

Who Owns the Fight Song? - Elite Tradition or Mass Participation
Author(s): Roshini Senthil and Saitarun Evani

This dashboard evaluates Big Ten fight songs through a custom Participation Index, scoring tracks based on crowd-oriented features like chants, spelling, and student authorship. Through a series of dot plots and bar charts, the visualization compares conferences and authorship styles to highlight whether these traditions lean toward mass inclusivity or elite formality. By mapping these "cultural artifacts", the data reveals the hidden tension between a song's communal spirit and its historical selectivity.

Screenshot of the Who Owns the Fight Song dashboard, showing a splatter chart and a bar graph.

Faculty/Staff Category Winner

Avian Influenza DashFLUboard
Author(s): Andres M. Perez

The DashFLUboard offers near real-time tracking and analysis of avian influenza outbreaks. This tool enables proactive surveillance and design of preventative measures in the susceptible animal population. Using a combination of real-time disease data, historical wild bird movements, environmental variables, and locations of susceptible populations DashFLUboard facilitates a comprehensive and accessible visualization of avian influenza data and risk. DashFLUboard is unique in that it enables both retrospective and prospective analyses of avian influenza dynamics, allowing users to assess the risk to their bird populations.

Screenshot of the DashFLUboard dashboard, showing a world map with areas of interest indicated by colored dots.

 

The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) is hosting a Data Viz Championship to celebrate International Love Data Week and showcase data visualization talents of students, faculty, and staff. The University of Minnesota is participating in the BTAA’s Data Viz Championship by hosting an all-campus internal competition that is open to undergraduate and graduate/professional students, faculty, and staff.

All entries will be judged and the top visualizations will be featured during Love Data Week. The top student and faculty/staff visualizations will win prizes. In addition, the highest placing Twin Cities student and faculty/staff visualizations will move on to the BTAA Data Viz Championship (only the Twin Cities campus is a BTAA member).

How to Submit Visualizations

Data Viz Championship entries should be submitted using the Love Data Week 2026 BTAA Data Viz Competition submission form. The deadline to submit visualizations is January 19, 2026.

Requirements For Students:

The challenge for students is to use the FiveThirtyEight Fight Songs data set to devise a data visualization to address the question(s) of your choice.

  • The FiveThirtyEight Fight Songs data set must be used, but additional data can also be used to supplement should students opt to do so
  • Visualizations must be accessible via a link that requires no login at the time of the Challenge voting and 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:

Submit an existing data visualization based or use the theme of the Big Ten (i.e., athletics, enrollment data, etc.) to create a new one. Visualizations can pertain to the institution as a whole or to a specific initiative or population. Submissions should follow institutional data policies. Example data sets are available if needed, along with visualization prompts (.doc download).

  • 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
  • Faculty and staff can collaborate together and all contributors must be credited; one person should be identified as the primary presenter