As described by Alan Cadwallader, Executive Director of Learning Delivery at Open Polytechnic New Zealand (OPNZ), it was essential for the Open Polytechnic to transition to the digital age as a natural extension of its extensive experience with correspondence education. OPNZ provides vocational education and training to more than 30,000 annual registrants who are mostly employed, over 25 years of age, and with multiple responsibilities. Providing 120 programs and qualifications from certificates to bachelor’s degrees, OPNZ offers open, distance flexible learning, with an emphasis on ‘flexible’.

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.