In this paper, we present Mini-McCALL, a 1.3-million-word corpus of computer-mediated communication in the context of online English universitycourses.1 The data consist of three types of written communication – bothbetween students and between students and teachers – in English: discussionforum messages, e-mail messages, and documents handed in as assignments.This pilot corpus comprises the first stage of a proposed 10-million-word corpusof computer-assisted language learning based on the online English coursesoffered by the Department of Humanities at Mid-Sweden University (Mittuniversitetet).In what follows, we first consider e-learning – online, off-campus study,where the medium of instruction and communication involves computer technology– from a theoretical perspective, and the need for such a corpus as oursto facilitate research into this new learning environment, as well as into the languageused in e-learning. We then describe the structure and content of Mini-McCALL and highlight both the research potential of the material and studiescurrently underway, as well as looking forward to the future development of thefull Mid-Sweden Corpus of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (McCALL).Both Mini-McCALL and the ultimate McCALL corpus will be made freelyavailable to the research community.