During Love Data Week, an annual international celebration of data held in mid-February, the Big Ten Academic Alliance brings together member universities to explore, share and celebrate all things data. As a BTAA member institution, Penn State and its students, faculty and staff are invited to participate in BTAA's weeklong schedule of no-cost virtual events beginning Feb. 9.
All BTAA member institutions' students, faculty and staff are invited to participate. Advance registration is required. Events listed on the website are displayed in Central Time.
Monday, Feb.9
Hallucination in the Wild: A Field Guide for LLM Users
Join speaker Ash Lewis of The Ohio State University as she tackles AI "hallucinations" using VISTA Score and provides practical strategies to build more transparent, reliable language models.
Tuesday, Feb.10
Current Landscape of Federal Data
Join experts from IHEP and the Data Rescue Project for a timely discussion on safeguarding federal data, addressing emerging gaps, and ensuring open, equitable access for evidence-based decision-making.
AI in Action: Innovation Across the Big Ten
Explore groundbreaking AI innovations from across the Big Ten Academic Alliance and discover how people are transforming research, education and real-world problem-solving.
Wednesday, Feb.11
Careers in Data (for students)
Gain insider perspectives on data careers from Big Ten leaders and alumni, covering pathways, skills and emerging trends to help you succeed in the evolving data landscape.
Love Digital Accessibility
Learn best practices for creating accessible data visualizations and dashboards that ensure everyone - including people with disabilities - can understand and engage with your data.
Thursday, Feb.12
Dashboard Duel: Power BI vs. Tableau - Iowa vs. Ohio State
Watch Iowa and Ohio State face off in a live dashboard-design showdown - Power BI vs. Tableau - showcasing creativity, strategy and actionable insights.
Friday, Feb. 13
Big Ten Data Viz Championship Showcase: Discover the Champions
Attendees can witness the brilliance of data visualization and learn who will emerge as student and faculty/staff Big Ten Data Viz Champions. Voting information will be announced by Monday, Feb. 9, with the unveiling of the data viz galleries, and on Feb. 13, the Big Ten Data Viz Championship Showcase will celebrate data storytelling featuring top visualizations, innovative insights and the crowning of this year's data champions.
Penn State's 2026 faculty/staff winner and BTAA entry is a collaborative quilt by Penn State Brandywine's Professor Laura Guertin and Librarian Annie Jensen, "Challenged Stitches: a quilt with banned book data." Penn Staters and all BTAA institutions' students and employees will be invited to vote on the people's choice winner of the Big Ten Data Viz Championship to win the Love It! Award.
