This essay review outlines three different ways in which examining the people and products that constitute the field of educational research can be used to generate data that can be leveraged in ways that explicitly move us towards the ambitious yet attainable goal of establishing an academic community that exchanges information in ways that allows others to verify, extend, and generalize research findings. This exchange is essential to the functioning of the research enterprise. What the field then needs, essentially, is data about itself: How do its products and people relate in different contexts over time? But, it also needs a method through which this can be accomplished and here is where the “newâ€? science of networks can be used to advance what we know about the field. Carolan B. & G. Natriello. (2005). Data Mining Journals and Books: Using the Science of Networks to Uncover the Structure of the Educational Research Community. Educational Researcher, 34, 3, 23-33.