Students acting as co-creators of academic material is growing in popularity as a pedagogical approach in higher education. With student engagement and persistence consistently being emphasized for student and institution well-being, educational praxis must foster engaged, high-retention student cohorts. This exploratory research uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the experience of students participating in a first-year course utilizing OER-enabled Pedagogy. Students considered how projects that were open impacted their perception of course engagement, satisfaction, and overall experience. Participants also evaluated their level of concern in sharing attributed academic work. A plurality of students preferred the project using OER-enabled Pedagogy, indicating it increased engagement and skills acquisition. The majority of students were unconcerned about sharing work publicly, even if their names were included. Themes that emerged from interviews included the motivational value of creating work potentially valuable to others, being given agency, and receiving public credit for their efforts.