I echo the call by the Hong Kong Computer Society for the government to provide new policy support to create a viable online education sector in the territory ('Call to create e-learning hub', January 27). The government has a crucial role to play in: Promoting the culture of e-learning to citizens by making all government functions accessible online; Co-ordinating and centralising electronic learning resources, rather than, for example, merging universities. A lot of taxpayers' money can be saved by merging electronic libraries of the local universities and building a centralised electronic library for all schools; Fostering good practices of e-teaching and e-learning by, for instance, setting up exemplary e-learning platforms like the United Kingdom's eUniversities, which is backed by the UK government; Enacting relevant copyright laws to protect the owners' rights of online learning materials; and Assisting the development and sharing of content created by schools and universities. The benefits of e-learning are recognised by distance education and campus-based universities as an integral part of their course delivery. The e-learning platform of the Open University of Hong Kong - the Online Learning Environment - encompasses: Online delivery of course content, which ranges from simple text to more sophisticated text with illustrations and animation, and interactive learning activities such as computer-mediated instructions and assessment; Access to the most up-to-date reference materials at websites worldwide; Online interactive tools such as chat, discussion boards and email which assist academic communications among students, teachers and the university; Online problem-based learning and collaborative work among students; and Online administrative functions, including the submission of assignments, enrolment of a course and payment of course fees and so forth. This system has proved to be very effective in increasing access, enhancing student communication and collaboration, and is able to reach a much wider learning community. About 60 per cent of the Open University's 400 courses are accessible online and it is planned to have all online in two years' time. We provide the largest full-text electronic library service in the region. It includes 10,000 electronic books and over 1,000 databases of journals. Dr YUEN KIN-SUN, Head, Educational Technology and Publishing, Open University of Hong Kong