Australian Bureau of Statistics is now releasing data and statistical publications with a creative commons license (Attribution 2.5 Australia). The first national statistical agency to do so? Thanks to Kylie Pappalardo from the OAK Law project for sharing this news.

Report from the Boston Globe regarding MIT researchers posting 'raw scientific data' on an online website. This article introduces the open access concept to a wide audience - to quote the researcher, "We're a generation who expects all information is a Google search away,".... "Not only is it a Google search away, but it's also released immediately. As soon as it happens, the video is up on YouTube and on all the blogs. The old model feels kind of crazy when you're used to this instant information."

Another Web2.0 data visualisation utility - similar functionality as Many Eyes, Swivel but with (forthcomong) data feed partners which can be trawlwd for useful data

Interesting item about how the volume of generated astronomy data has surpassed the ability of scientists to analyse it, and so how they have enlisted the public (amateur astronomers) to help.

Jordan Hatcher's Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and Licence launched at the Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) at the LSE (Mar. 2008). The ODC PDDL is a document intended to allow you to freely share, modify, and use this work for any purpose and without any restrictions. This licence is intended for use on databases or their contents (”data”), either together or individually.

A short and sweet summary of the Cambridge report sizing up the UK Trading Funds (such as the Met Office, Land Registry and the Ordnance Survey) and their business models. Bottom line? Opening up the data vaults at these agencies "could benefit the economy to the tune of net £164m." Link through to the full report and on to the Guardian's Free Our Data Campaign.

Peter Murray-Rust, a reader in molecular informatics at the University of Cambridge, has a vision. In his vision, software robots roam the network collecting scientific information, which they aggregate and process to arrive at new insights.

Open Access Interview with Peter Murray-Rust (Univ. Cambridge) discussing (amongst other things) the Open Data movement

The Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) sets out principles to define the 'open' in open knowledge. The term knowledge is used broadly and it includes all forms of data, content such as music, films or books as well any other type of information.