The term "MOOC" was first used in 2008 in reference to an online course called “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge” by the University of Manitoba (Canada). Since, MOOC was considered "the educational buzzword of 2012" and has been inundated with commercial perspectives. The issue with past research regarding MOOCs is that much of the "research" has been intended as promotional material.

The movement for open course ware can be linked to 2001 with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare platform. This allowed for course material to exist permanently on the internet with respective permissions for re-use and distribution. Other notable early MOOC projects include the Open University of UK and Open Learning Initiative by Carnegie Mellon University.

Currently, many MOOC platforms operate via partnerships between top universities. Prime examples of this are Coursera, edX, and Udacity.

Recognized academic research on MOOCs began to appear in 2008.