With the continual increase in online learning, demand for meaningful and effective digital instruction likewise has surged in recent years. Collaboration, too, has endured as a common pedagogical method. Yet, marrying collaboration with online learning can be incredibly difficult for both faculty members and students. Still, group work remains a useful tool for advancing communication skills, creativity, achievement, and community in online courses. This phenomenological, instrumental, embedded multiple case study, then, explored and contrasted student and faculty perceptions of online group work and considered how those perceptions changed over the course of a small-group project. Through the lens of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, pre- and post- surveys and interviews as well as course observations revealed the substantial influence implementation has on perceptions of online group work as well as the conflicting practices employed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]