Bucky’s Data Viz Challenge
Are you a data storyteller excited to show the campus community what you can do? Are you a student looking for a fun way to highlight your data viz skills? Are you a researcher interested in new and innovative ways to communicate your research?
Bucky’s Data Viz Challenge, a platform for UW–Madison students, faculty, and staff to showcase their creative data visualization skills, is now accepting entries for the 2026 challenge. Get all the details!
2026 Love Data Week—February 9 to 13
Planning is currently underway for UW—Madison’s Love Data Week celebration. International Love Data Week is a celebration of data held each year during the week of Valentine’s Day. Universities, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and individuals are encouraged to participate.
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♥️ Do—you will adore these 3 quick tips that take 3 minutes each about how to organize and protect your data
Tip #1. Create a readme file (example) for your most important data set. Using a plain text (.txt) or markdown (.md) format, the readme file should include information about the creators of the files, a list of the files included in the set, relevant funder information, and any associated research outputs, such as articles or presentations. More information is available from the libraries.
Tip #2. Bring a sense of order to your Google Drive, Box, or SharePoint storage. Take 3 minutes to organize your top-level and save time later on when you can easily find materials and the correct version!
Tip #3. Where are you storing your sensitive data and restricted data? Use the Storage Finder Tool to find a safe place (and your hard drive is not one of them).
♥️Learn—take your passion for data to the next level
Data@UW – Data Governance and Responsible Use, a 30-minute, self-paced employee module. It helps you understand your responsibilities to protect the institutional data that employees collect and use daily, such as:
- student information,
- paper copies of benefits elections,
- utility maps of campus buildings, or
- digital databases accessed remotely.
Want to learn more about protecting student data? The Office of the Registrar, responsible for student data, is a central campus resource for FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and offers two ways to access FERPA training.
It is the perfect time to get familiar with some of the Library’s Research Data Services resources for managing and sharing research data available at UW-Madison. Explore these resources to discover matches for you and your data.
Do you know how to apply privacy principles at work? While Wisconsin doesn’t have a comprehensive state privacy law, data privacy is still vital to our institution, employees, and students. We don’t need a law to practice privacy principles in meaningful ways! Here are 7 generally accepted privacy principles.
DAPIR and the University Libraries at UW-Madison along with the BTAA (Big Ten Academic Alliance) are sponsors of this year’s Love Data Week.