A tale about Zen philosophy and a motorcycle (that is: OER & MOOC quality)

The paper introduces the concept of education quality, mainly based on a shared culture, that is a background for a permanent reflection on a process in which teachers, students, and stakeholders are involved, in a gradual improvement of their competence. People can achieve quality if they head for an open, participatory, iterative trajectory towards personal identity construction through the achievement of satisfaction of a well done work. In this context measurement tools and final quality controls are only a means “toward the end of satisfying the peace of mind of those responsible for the work” (Pirsig, first edition 1974, 2005, p.304). The also describes the Open Educational Resources and Massive Open Online Courses phenomenon, and presents the most recent studies about the theoretical framework and practical tools available in the scientific literature to scaffold the quality evaluation of open education. The discussion, taking full advantage of the literature presented, recognises that we are still in the infancy of the Open Education quality evaluation, and that the available tools have still to demonstrate their value in the application's fields, through empirical researches.