In my first words, I would like to refer to the previous issue of the magazine, in which we informed about the Ministry of Science and Higher Education's plans to prepare amendments to the Bill on E-learning. Those plans were carried into effect by the Ministry. Therefore, the Regulation by the Minister of Science and Higher Education on conditions which have to be fulfilled so that higher education courses could be organized with the use of methods and techniques of e-learning was implemented on 9th of May 2008. The amendment eliminated part of controversial regulations concerning differentiation of universities according to degree awarding powers at setting maximal percent of online lectures and special rights for organization of studies with the use of methods and techniques of distance education outside Europe. Unfortunately, the range of rights is not sufficient. Most importantly, "equalization" allows for 60 percent of the maximum amount of hours possible to conduct online in the general amount of hours for particular specialization and level of education. Such decision restrains conducting full studies in e-learning form by Polish academic institutions. Consequently, the competitive advatage our academic centers will decrease, on national as well as on foreign market, where more and more Polish academic institutions develop their activities. We witness specific bipolarization in the government's policies. On the one hand, the Ministry answers the needs of academic community by putting e-learning in priority areas of an educational system (the Ministry of Science and Higher Education's reform resolutions, April, 2008), on the other hand, it implements minor "rectification" of the regulation meticulously normalizing distance education.

Adverse legal environment fortunately does not totally hamper developmental activities in e-learning, understood as a form of education as well as a field of study. It can be proved by the study included to just released publication - E-learning for the growth of the society, which is the result of the 4th Conference The development of e-learning in higher education of economics. Electronic version of the book (PDF) is available to download at www.e-edukacja.net. As much as I encourage to reading of the publication, I also recommend the current and, at the same time, the last before summer holidays issue of e-mentor. I would also like to wish the readers great vacation, enthusiasm and strength for the new academic year. Chief editor
Marcin Dąbrowski