Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a valuable open educational resource for people around the world. Although they have been published for over a decade, there has not been a consistent means by which to evaluate their quality or establish whether they are meeting the needs of learners. This action research study sought to understand learners' motivations and experiences when taking massive open online courses (MOOCs), in order to develop metrics for evaluating course quality. In the Cycle 1 of this work, MOOC learners were recruited to be interviewed for a qualitative research project seeking to discover, reveal, and characterize their motivations for enrolling, their behavior in courses, and the value they perceived. Analysis of the interviews showed that learners enroll for a variety of reasons, such as curiosity and exploration, connection, or skill acquisition, and these motivations influenced their behavior in the course and their perception of value of the course. Following Cycle 1, practitioners were recruited to participate in the Action Step of this work to interpret the Cycle 1 results in the work context, and use the results to create a "Learner Design Guide" to help educate the best means to incorporate learners into course design. In Cycle 2 of this research, course designers and faculty were recruited to evaluate the learner design guide, and reflect on how courses should be evaluated. This data was also analyzed to assess the effectiveness of the action step, and then to produce a series of metrics with which MOOCs could be evaluated generally. On the basis of these analyses, we recommend that evaluation should be flexible and built on the goals of both the producers as well as the learners who take them. Overall, MOOCs should be evaluated by the quality of their design, the performance of learners, the reach of their influence, their re-use as an educational resource, and the personal impact on learners. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]