lexisnexisDURBAN, January 13, 2011 – LexisNexis South Africa, a leading provider of content-enabled workflow solutions, has completed a project through which the company has donated approximately R90 million worth of legal research services to universities around South Africa. Through these donations, students have access to LexisNexis online legal information.

“The legal industry’s reliance on digital information has increased in recent years, and worldwide there is a growing demand for sophisticated online research tools,” says LexisNexis academic manager Inge Mulder. “Law students need to develop a good understanding of online research methodologies to survive in the increasingly competitive legal environment.”

The research tool includes legislation, law reports and commentary that law students need to access on a daily basis, as well as an array of LexisNexis professional legal publications. LexisNexis began a drive to donate its online research solution, My LexisNexis, to major South African public universities in 2000. Since then, the program has expanded to include universities in outlying areas. To date, the law faculties of 24 South African public universities have received the LexisNexis donation.

“LexisNexis is committed to partnering with these universities, and to providing free access to a wealth of regularly updated content for students and academic staff,” Mulder continues.

The commercial value of the research service donation is estimated at almost R4-million per institution and students access the LexisNexis content through the universities’ library information centres.

“When we started the project, certain universities had limited IT infrastructure and were not able to benefit from the donation at that time. In recent months however, LexisNexis has been able to supply access to the legal resources for the last outstanding universities, namely Mangosuthu University, University of Zululand and the Durban University of Technology, which shows the increased value all the universities are placing on online sources of information,” Mulder concludes.

Other universities which have received the LexisNexis donation of online legal content include: University of Stellenbosch; University of Cape Town; University of the Western Cape; University of the Witwatersrand; University of Johannesburg; Vaal University of Technology; North West University; University of Swaziland; University of Pretoria; Tshwane University of Technology; University of the Free State; Central University of Technology; University of Venda University; University of Limpopo; UNISA; University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (Durban); University of Kwa-Zulu Natal (Pietermaritzburg); Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University; Durban University of Technology; Rhodes University; Fort Hare University; and Walter Sisulu University.

Contributed by:
LexisNexis
LexisNexis® (www.lexisnexis.com) is a leading global provider of content-enabled workflow solutions designed specifically for professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting, and academic markets. LexisNexis originally pioneered online information with its Lexis® and Nexis® services. A member of Reed Elsevier [NYSE: ENL; NYSE: RUK], LexisNexis serves customers in more than 100 countries with 15,000 employees worldwide.

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