Lack of coordination and coherence among contributions is a typical problem with the use of chat for netbased learning. We propose so-called learning protocols to increase coordination, coherence, and, hence, the efficiency of learning via chat. Learning protocols are system controlled cooperation scripts: Participants explicitely identify the reference and the type of their contributions, and the order of contributions is predetermined. As an example, the explanation protocol is described and empirical results confirming that structured discourse leads to superior learning are presented.