John Hilton III wrote an excellent entry describing three categories of renewable assignments:

  1. Renewable Assignments that Primarily Benefit the Public,
  2. Renewable Assignments that are Primary Course Resources such as Textbooks, and
  3. Renewable Assignments and Secondary Learning Resources Designed to Improve the Understanding of Future Students

A fourth one might be Renewable Assignments that are Original Scholarship. One example might be the collection and subsequent analysis and publication of data that are then made available for use by other students or scientists. Such projects can often be found under the citizen science category. For example, here are some whale sighting data around Vancouver Island. As long as collected data and resources dependent on that data have appropriate permissions attached to them, such projects may fall under the renewable assignment as scholarship category. This category might also include books (but not textbooks that might be classified under category 3 above). For example, when my students wrote essays on their experiences with open online learning back in 2013, those essays captured student experiences and perspectives around MOOCs and open education as a time when scholarly literature on the topic was nascent.

I’m sure there are other examples, and like John, I’d love to hear other ideas on the topic!