In this Group Work Online Brown Bag, we will introduce the concepts behind collaboration and community building online. This session is intended for faculty who are designing and developing courses online and would like to know more about best practices in approaches to learning that “involves groups students to work together to solve a problem, complete a task or create a product,” (Johnson and Johnson, 2000).  In addition to key principles of online collaboration, we will also discuss group challenges and some strategies to help improve the experience and outcomes for students.  The eLearning team will also explore some basic collaborative activities that instructors can use to get started.