Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) concentrate an important number of students and are set up as an alternative for acquiring knowledge and continuing education. The objective of this article is to analyze how the quality and effectiveness of the MOOCs were measured in empirical studies between 2012 and 2017. For which a systematic mapping study of articles was performed by using databases of Scopus and Web of Science. These articles were analyzed according to the: (1) context of the publication, (2) type of developing institutions and distribution platforms of the MOOC, and (3) characteristics of the empirical studies. It was identified that 54% of the developing institutions were universities and that 31% of the platforms that distributed the MOOC are of Coursera. These articles were also analyzed by type of study, the more frequently used indicators to measure the effectiveness, and the more frequently used focus points (approaches) to measure quality. The results of this study are useful because it allows having a general view of the most frequently utilized methodologies to measure quality and effectiveness in MOOCs.