Drawing upon the growing datafication of contemporary schooling, our purpose in this article is to use topological thinking as an analytical device to better understand the professionals and practices within emergent data infrastructures. We address this by attending to an influential national (and subnational) data infrastructure of school monitoring in the United States, managed by the federal Department of Education, known as EDFacts. Informed by policy documents relating to EDFacts, as well as by various related software platforms and portals, we explore the whom and how of datafication, and expose the increasing presence and influence of otherwise ‘hidden’ technology mediators, or ‘shadow professionals’. In particular, we argue that the increasing dependency of EDFacts on data has necessitated the introduction of new professional roles associated with optimising the flow of data, and thus stabilising and normalising the topological space of the infrastructure. We conclude by suggesting that EDFacts encourages teaching professionals and shadow professionals alike to engage in acts of data submission; that is, providing data to EDFacts and, at the same time, positioning themselves as wholly responsive to the infrastructure and its datafied renderings of schooling.

利用当代学校不断增长的数据功能，我们在本文中的目的是使用拓扑思维作为一种分析工具，以更好地了解新兴数据基础架构中的专业人员和实践。为了解决这个问题，我们参加了由美国联邦教育部（EDFacts）管理的美国有影响力的国家（和地方以下）学校监控数据基础架构。在与EDFacts有关的政策文件以及各种相关软件平台和门户的通知下，我们探索了谁以及如何进行数据传播，并暴露原本“隐藏”的技术中介或“影子专业人员”日益增长的影响力和影响力。特别是，我们认为EDFact对数据的依赖性日益增加，因此有必要引入与优化数据流相关的新的专业角色，从而稳定和规范化基础架构的拓扑空间。最后我们建议EDFacts鼓励教学专业人员和影子专业人员都参与数据提交的行为; 也就是说，向EDFacts提供数据，同时将自己定位为完全响应基础设施及其数据化的学校教学效果。