The provision of support services for students is an important component of distance education. Evidence exists to suggest that there is a positive relationship between students' academic performance and effective use of support systems. For example, at The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) a study reported by Taplin et al. (1999) found that one of the factors differentiating between high and low-achievers was that the former were more active in seeking help for a range of problems, particularly for test and examination anxiety, self-motivation, and finding time to study The high-achievers and particularly the women students, were also more likely to create situations of communal learning, for example through setting up study groups with their fellow students. That more of the women than the men in the high achievers group did so is consistent with the findings of Hipp (1997) and Kirkup and von Prummer (1997), that many women students have special needs for personalcontact or support networks, and that they see isolation as being more of a problem than men perceive it to be.

It is this question of help-seeking and establishing peer support groups is the subject of this paper