Northwestern Data Viz Championship
Calling all Northwestern students, faculty, and staff! Showcase your data visualization skills for the chance to win prizes and compete for the prestigious Big Ten Data Viz Championship Title.
Cash prizes will be awarded to the participants who finish 1st ($250), 2nd ($150), or 3rd ($75) in either the student or faculty/staff category based on judging by the Northwestern Love Data Committee.
The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2027.
How to Participate
Requirements:
Students:- Students must use the NCAA Women's College Basketball data set. Students may supplement with additional publicly available data if they choose to do so.
- Students must be actively enrolled at the institution for undergraduate or graduate coursework, thesis, or dissertation study.
- Students may collaborate in teams of up to two people for submissions.
- Visualizations must be accessible via a link that requires no login during the Championship voting.
- Submit a visualization using:
- Public research that you are involved in at Northwestern,
- Something related to the Big Ten (e.g., athletics, enrollment data, etc.), or
- Information about Northwestern- either the institution as a whole or a specific initiative/population.
- All submissions must follow the schools’ institutional data policies and guidelines (i.e., please do not submit a viz with Social Security Numbers or HIPAA information).
- Visualizations must be accessible via a link that requires no login during the Championship voting.
Get Help from Research Computing and Data Services Staff
The RCDS data and visualization experts are available to all students, faculty, and staff who need any assistance in creating a visualization for the competition. They will have two open office hours sessions specifically for the Data Viz competition:
- Thursday, January 7, 2027, 1-3pm
- Wednesday, January 13, 11am-1pm
Both are at Mudd Library Small Classroom 2124. No appointment necessary, just drop-in.
Submitting to the Northwestern Competition
All entries must be submitted using the online submission form linked below. Entries will be judged by a panel of Northwestern visualization experts. Designers of the top three submissions for the Northwestern competition in both categories, students and faculty/staff, will receive cash prizes (see above). The first place winner in each category will be submitted to the Big Ten Data Viz Championship.
Submit your data visualization!