In working with network data, data acquisition is often the most basic yet the most important and challenging step. The availability of data and norms around data vary drastically across different areas and types of research. A team of biologists may spend more than a decade running assays to gather a cells interactome; another team of biologists may only analyze publicly available data. A social scientist may spend years conducting surveys of underrepresented groups. A computational social scientist may examine the entire network of Facebook. An economist may comb through large financial documents to gather tables of data on stakes in corporate holdings. In this chapter, we move one step along the network study life-cycle. Key to data gathering is good record-keeping and data provenance. Good data gathering sets us up for future success—otherwise, garbage in, garbage out—making it critical to ensure the best quality and most appropriate data is used to power your investigation.

This chapter gives a general outline of Powers' vision of a research program aimed at testing his PCT model of purposeful behavior. The program involves gathering data on the variables organisms control when they are carrying out various behaviors and classifying those variables into types. The goal of the program is to see if the variables organisms actually control correspond to the types of variables controlled and the hierarchical relationships between them in the PCT model of behavior. Once it is validated by testing the PCT model can be used as a basis for understanding behavior opening up the possibility of developing better ways of dealing with the living control systems that are often the ones most prominent in our lives - other people.