In her excellent editorial, Elizabeth E. Hare discusses e-learning for psychiatrists. ^{Reference Hare1} We wish to highlight another e-learning resource for psychiatrists, of which the readership may not be aware.

Mayes et al suggest that ‘there are really no models of e-learning per se – only e-enhancements of models of learning’. ^{Reference Mayes and de Freitas2} So as with all learning, e-learning needs to be based on good pedagogical principles, with good instructional design as a foundation.

Further, Hattie conducted a meta-analysis where he examined the relative effectiveness of various educational factors on student achievement. ^{Reference Hattie3} The top seven in terms of effect size were: reinforcement (1.13), student's prior cognitive ability (1.00), instructional quality (1.04), direct instruction (0.82), remediation/feedback (0.65), student's disposition to learn (0.61) and class environment (0.56).

It is possible to see how e-learning may enhance ‘reinforcement’ and ‘student's disposition to learn’. Video e-learning represents another form of e-learning, which also addresses the ‘direct instruction’ and ‘class environment’ interventions – it may be easier to learn from a ‘live’ teacher talking with credibility and passion directly to the student in a classroom, rather than reading the same words from written text. By way of example, the Video Journal of Psychiatry is a sponsored online service providing classroom-like lectures on MRCPsych curricula and continuing professional development topics to Irish psychiatrists (www.vjpsych.ie).

Cook et al have shown that internet-based learning is beneficial to students and is probably as effective as the traditional instructional methods. ^{Reference Cook, Levinson, Garside, Dupras, Erwin and Montori4} What is needed now is more research, comparing the efficacy of the various internet-based interventions.