The Nigerian Research and Education Network (NgREN) says it closed a deal to make educational resources valued at $4 million available for free to Nigerian universities till the end of the year.

NgREN says that with the deal, connected universities will get access to online resources provided by EBSCOhost, a provider of premium online information resources for tens of thousands of institutions worldwide, representing millions of end users.

NgREN says the EBSCOHost e-content will be made available via the Internet and promote learning across Nigerian universities. These resources valued at about $4 million, would, is expected to grow the number of available resources in the nation’s university libraries and also foster research activities among institutions in the Nigerian University System (NUS).

NgREN says with this transaction, all EBSCO host e-books collections and seven of its research databases, including full text e-journals, periodicals and magazines of several academic disciplines and professional specializations, will be available for free to many Nigerian Universities until December 31st, 2016.

According to a statement by Professor Julius A. Okojie, Chairman, NgREN Board  “these resources contains more than 100,000 high-quality e-book titles, 27,100 full-text journals, 18,430 indexed and abstracted journals, 9,041,400 searchable cited references daily updates and 630 videos with transcripts and related articles – all valued at about $4 million.”

[quote font=”georgia” font_size=”22″ font_style=”italic” align=”left” arrow=”yes”] These resources valued at about $4 million, would, is expected to grow the number of available resources in the nation’s university libraries and also foster research activities among institutions in the Nigerian University System (NUS).[/quote]Professor Okojie who also doubles as Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC) says that “by accessing these resources, Nigerian Universities and research institutes will have access to a more and impactful collaboration resources and facilitates accreditation of programs.”

The NgREN Chairman however  urges all Nigerian Universities to start using these resources offered through the EBSCO host services expected to expire by December 31, 2016. Although he also says NgREN plans to extend the period of accessing these resources beyond the expiration of the current service.

“Universities in Nigeria are hereby encouraged to utilise these resources which are available on the NgREN at no cost until the end of 2016. Plans are underway to ensure that the universities continue to access these EBSCO, as well as other e-resources beyond the expiration of the current service”, Okojie adds.

The Nigerian Research and Education Network (NgREN) was established by the National Universities Commission in partnership with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, with a mandate of providing an elaborate infrastructural backbone to interconnect all Research and Education Institutions in Nigeria and link them with other Research and Education Networks (RENs) worldwide.