Finding out what government is up to, or trying to get problems resolved by big bureaucracies, can be hard in these days of mammoth departments.

"Comment is free but facts are sacred', is a famous quote from C.P. Scott, founding editor of the Guardian newspaper.

We will be hearing more and more about data licensing as the drive to share data gathers force. If you are interested in sharing your data openly, there are existing licenses available to you. The Open Knowledge Foundation has produced a Guide to Open Data Licensing to help navigate this maze.

The Open Scholarship Survey, part of the Open Scholarship Initiative, goes live this week. As a research project, the survey is intended to obtain a stratified random sample of responses from researchers, research and teaching academics, administrators and students.

Publicly available data from telescopes allowed Monash student Amelia Fraser-McKelvie to research and publish a paper about the missing mass of the universe. Her work is showcased in this episode of The Science Show on ABC's Radio National.

Data sharing has always been part of scientific method, since it allows other researchers to verify and build on existing results.

"Science is based on building on, reusing and openly criticising the published body of scientific knowledge. For science to effectively function, and for society to reap the full benefits from scientific endeavours, it is crucial that science data be made open.

Talking Maps was the winner of this year's Libraryhack competition.

"One of the essential ingredients of re-usable data is clarity of re-use permissions, terms, and conditions", according to ANDS. Yet finding out what data is open and what use can be made of it is often a minefield.