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. In 2025, DAPIR partnered with the University Libraries at UW–Madison and the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) to bring you events, quick tips, and learning opportunities.
- Explore the student and faculty/staff BTAA Data Viz Championship galleries.
- Do – 3 quick tips that take 3 minutes each to organize and protect your data.
- Learn – access learning opportunities on your own time.
- Attend – 2026 Love Data Week events will be shared in January of 2026.
❤️ BTAA Data Viz Championship
Eugenie Huang, a GISPP Fellow with the State Cartographer’s Office, was the student entry for UW-Madison in 2025. Her entry, Interactive Explorer: U.S. National Part Visitation Trends (1979-2023), featured national park rankings over time, annual trends in visits, monthly patterns, camping and backcountry activities, and more. Thank you, Eugenie, for representing UW–Madison!
Congratulations to the BTAA Data Viz Champions! The student winner was Lauren Hyde from the University of Illinois. Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider and Louisa Zhang, also from the University of Illinois, were the faculty/staff winners.
The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Data Viz Championship is an opportunity for students, as well as faculty and staff at Big Ten institutions, to showcase their data visualization skills and compete for the title of BTAA Data Viz Champion. Students were given a data set and asked to produce a data visualization for submission, while faculty and staff could submit an existing visualization that highlights their institution or one of its projects or uses a theme of Big Ten institutions. The student and faculty/staff BTAA Data Viz Championship galleries remain available for viewing.
♥️ 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.
♥️ Attend—surround yourself with others who love data
Thank you to everyone who attended a 2025 event. We will share 2026 events in January of 2026. Our 2025 events are listed below.
Design principles for data visualization
Do you want to make well-designed data visualizations that stand out? Join Mandy Morrow from DesignLab as she shares design strategies and ways to think outside the box when visualizing your data.
Details: Tuesday, February 11 from 6:00 p.m to 7:00 p.m. at the College Library, Media Studio Room 2252B, Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St. Visit the Libraires’ event webpage for more information.
Book displays
College Library will host a book display featuring books from their collection that can help students increase their data knowledge. Organized by Pamela O’Donnell, Communications & Collection Development Librarian. Details: Available 24 hours a day from Monday, February 10 to Friday, February 14 at College Library, Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St.
Steenbock Library will host a book display featuring books from their collection that can help researchers increase their skills in data analysis and working with computational tools. Organized by Heather Shimon, Science and Engineering Librarian. Details: Starting Monday, February 10 at the Steenbock Library, 550 Babcock Dr. Library hours vary.
BTAA sponsored events
BTAA events require advance registration. All sessions are one hour unless noted. Additional event information, including full event descriptions, speakers, and their biographies, is available on the BTAA’s Love Data Week event page.
- Navigating the Future: Careers in Data. Monday, February 10 at 10 a.m.
- Building a Resume in Tableau. Monday, February 10, at noon (90-minute session).
- Strategies for Success in Survey Administration. Tuesday, February 11 at 9 a.m. Sara Lazenby, a Distinguished Institutional Policy Analyst in DAPIR’s office, is one of three panelists.
- Thinking with Data Visualizations, Fast and Slow. Tuesday, February 11 at 4 p.m.
- Mastering Data Literacy for Strategic Insights. Wednesday, February 12 at 9 a.m. Lisa Johnston, Director of Data Governance for DAPIR, is one of three panelists.
- Unlocking Insights: Rapid Qualitative Data Analysis with Microsoft Copilot. Wednesday, February 12 at 1 p.m.
- Influence and Impact: The Keys to Great Data Leadership. Thursday, February 13 at 2 p.m.
- Data Viz Championship Showcase. Friday, February 14, at 1 p.m. (90-minute session).
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.