Online learning environments offer efficient ways of interconnecting group members and satisfying their communicative needs. However, learning does not proceed through shared communication alone; all groups imply social processes and learning groups demand an additional pedagogical intention. Popular online learning systems satisfactorily enable the management of students and teaching staff but offer limited tools to support familiar educational techniques and even fewer to support the essential processes of group dynamics that accompany learning. This paper draws from both the literature of learning and of interpersonal and social interaction to define those characteristics of an online group that support learning and proceeds to use these criteria as a tool to evaluate currently available systems. (Contains 1 table.)