Many educational institutions in Europe develop and offer open education and, in particular, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as strategies for extending their reach, enticing students to enrol in the university, offering learning opportunities in their national languages to international participants, providing specific training opportunities, and as components of degree as well as open courses.

A group of academics and researchers from institutions across Europe, including Greece, Portugal, and France, with coordination by the Welten Institute of the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL), formed MOOQ, the European Alliance for the Quality of Massive Open Online Courses to build a tool to support quality improvement in MOOCs. Their investigation found most MOOCs have similar and limited designs and structures, lacking in opportunities for online coaching, collaboration, personalization and feedback.

To support the development of a guide supporting quality in MOOCs, a proposal was submitted to the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission for funding to construct a MOOC Quality Reference Framework (QRF). Funding was received for a three-year research project which was recently completed.