Abstract: This dissertation analyzes The Company Therapist project, an adult online group cooperative creative writing class. It uses Jonassen et al. (2003) criteria for meaningful learning: technology should be used to engage students in active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative learning. It examines a taxonomy of internet-based learning materials using The Situational Learning Matrix and focuses on the differences between cooperation and collaboration using the following variables (partly based on Dillenbourg (1999)): total project time, individual time, total work, individual work, group size, interaction symmetries, individual motivation, and rate of interaction. The dissertation farther discusses the possible reasons for failure or success of an online educational experience and provides an inventory of computer-based interactional and instructional objects. There are benefits and drawbacks to using the Internet to deliver educational opportunities. The structure of the curriculum can greatly increase the former and reduce the latter. My main goal was to design and develop an instructional structure that supports meaningful learning as defined above, takes full advantage of this medium, and caters to the needs of adult students that choose it as their preferred method for getting their education. The result of this design and development effort was The Company Therapist project, which ran continuously from 1996 to 1999. The product of this course can be found at www.TheTherapist.com. Using the data from this project, I've examined the differences between cooperative and collaborative group projects, student motivation, and goal alignment. I then discusses the instructional structures necessary to support these. I use The Company Therapist project as model of the design, development, and execution of an online course to teach creative writing to a group. I then explore taking this curriculum structure and applying it to a different circumstance with a different audience, creating a proposal for the History in The Making project.