What is Love Data Week?
Love Data Week is an international celebration of data, taking place every year during the week of Valentine’s Day. Originally coordinated by Heather Coates, International Love Data Week is a celebration of all things data that seeks to bring people together to share their experiences, learn best practices, and have some fun. The international effort is now hosted at the University of Michigan’s ICPSR, and many Big Ten institutions coordinate their own institutional celebrations. Member institutions of the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) will host events that bring together participants from across our institutions to discuss data-related themes.
BTAA Data Viz Championship
Congratulations to our 2026 University of Illinois competition winners!
Student Submission: The College Fight Song Breakdown (Andrea Turek)
“A visual tour of what colleges sing when they want to feel unstoppable. We treat fight songs like data: tropes, repetition, “rah” energy, and competitive language – then compare the rhetoric to reality.”
Employee Submission: Illinois App Users & Popular Pathways (Cameron Schwing)
“This dashboard summarizes who uses the Illinois app, how they engage with its features, and how they navigate between core services.“
Additional 2026 Data Viz submissions may be viewed at https://publish.illinois.edu/lovedataweek/love-data-week-2026-data-viz-competition/
More information about Love Data Week 2026 can be found at https://publish.illinois.edu/lovedataweek/love-data-week-2026/
Previous University of Illinois Winners
2025 University of Illinois Competition Winners
2024 University of Illinois Competition Winners
Love Data Week Events
U of I System Event: February 12, 2026
BTAA 2026 Events: February 9 – 13, 2026 (Data Viz Championship Showcase 2/13 @ 1pm)
Additional Information
For more information about Love Data Week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, feel free to email Amy Edwards at aledward@illinois.edu.