Therefore, it is unclear how these findings may vary across student identities and backgrounds, which is important for understanding equity and inclusion in open education (Croft and Brown Citation2020). Moreover, the renewable assignments themselves varied and it is possible that student perceptions differed based on the specifics of the assignments. Furthermore, the study was primarily quantitative which allowed for an investigation based on predetermined constructs.

Recognitive justice levels were lower for students who chose to publicly share compared to their peers who did not publicly share. These findings indicate students who publicly shared felt they had more opportunity to express their identities and voice than students who did not publicly share.

The recognitive justice demonstrated in course materials can be ascertained by the diversity of content to “widen participation” and combat stereotypes (Bracken and Wood Citation2019; Lambert and Czerniewicz Citation2020).

Because renewable assignments are likely unfamiliar to most students, it is possible that there would be concerns about competence relative to traditional assignments with which students may have more experience. Peer collaboration and feedback are considered attributes of open pedagogy practices such as renewable assignments (Hegarty Citation2015). Therefore, it is anticipated that feelings of relatedness would be higher for renewable assignments compared to traditional assignments (Butz and Stupnisky Citation2017). Overall, renewable assignments are anticipated to be more supportive of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness which would indicate higher levels of intrinsic motivation in terms of interest and enjoyment relative to traditional assignments (Ryan and Dec

Therefore, in this study, we examined student perceptions of their understanding of the unique aspects of renewable assignments in terms of privacy, licensing, and value of sharing. We also used the frameworks of self-determination theory and social justice to compare students who opted to publicly share their materials with those who did not as well as examine their rationales for decisions to publicly share.