In 2014, I took Introduction to Sustainability, which has three peer-reviewed assignments. The first was on the topic Tragedy of the Commons.
As a test while researching the current situation of peer-reviewed assignments on Coursera, I re-submitted an answer that I wrote back in 2014. For reasons best known to Coursera, my assignment was unable to be assessed by AI, so it was reviewed by three peers according to the marking rubric.
I was surprised to see that one of my reviewers claimed it was written by AI. Another reviewer’s feedback did not relate to my response, mentioning a public park and including a recommendation that I add a citation or reference, even though I had included nine links to references.
On the plus side, although I lost one mark from the peer who thought I had used AI, the other reviewers gave me full marks, so I scored five out of five (100%) for the assignment.
To see if my response from 11 years ago had been submitted by multiple people over the years (and thus might appear to be plagiarised), I passed the text through https://plagiarismdetector.net/ which reassuringly said it had only 6% plagiarised content.
Next, I tested it with an AI detector. It was rather disappointing to discover that back in 2014, almost half of my text (highlighted) was written in an AI style.
My Class Central Colleagues Weren’t Fooled
As a matter of interest, I showed the post to my Class Central colleagues and asked if they thought it was written by AI. Happily, the general consensus was that it was human-written. Comments included, “looks human to me because of grammatical inconsistencies — no commas or brackets where necessary” and, “The broken links was what got me … it didn’t look AI, but you can still prompt it in a way that looks less like default AI. Plus the research felt too deep for a Coursera assignment.”
And yes, the research was deep. I enjoyed this eight-week course in 2014 and took it seriously, spending hours on the assignments and becoming a volunteer Community TA for the next session. Because it was on the original Coursera platform, the course runs were session-based, with hard deadlines for the weekly quizzes and three peer-reviewed assignments. Learners were expected to engage in the weekly discussion topics and comment on other’s posts in the forum. We then had to choose our best answers and submit them for peer review to count towards our final course grade in modules three, six, and seven. The discussion threads were prolific and very dynamic!
I was delighted when the instructor mentioned my post in the weekly email of September 13, 2014. Yes, in the days of session-based courses, many instructors wrote and sent regular emails to the course participants during the course. Receiving those weekly emails helped me keep on track, particularly when my enthusiasm boiled over and I enrolled in several courses at once.
The Original Post
Note: This is the exact post from 2014 including the original links. Some of the links are no longer active.
A “Commons” Outside the Atmosphere: Space.
As the number of man-made objects in space increases, so does the number of pieces of space junk that is comprised of decommissioned satellites, empty fuel tanks, launching rockets, broken debris and other assorted bits and pieces that are hurtling around at high speeds. NASA estimates that there are around 500 000 objects of greater than 1 cm size orbiting the earth, most of them below 10 cm. There are also an estimated more than one million particles less than 1 cm across, such as paint flakes (NASA Orbital Debris Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/faqs.html). Images of low-orbit and high-orbit space junk in 2009 can be found on NASA’s Earth Observatory page here: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40173
Collisions have happened in space. In 2009, a satellite owned by Iridium Communications collided with a decommissioned Russian satellite (http://www.space.com/5542-satellite-destroyed-space-collision.html. The collision created thousands of pieces of debris.
This page http://www.spaceanswers.com/space-exploration/why-dont-objects-collide-often-in-earth-orbit/ explains why collisions do not happen more often. Basically, it is because most spacecraft in orbit are orbiting at similar speeds, so do not catch up with each other. They are also frequently orbiting at different heights.
Since 1988, the USA has tried to limit the amount of space debris (NASA Orbital Debris FAQs again – No 17). Whether this individual approach has been honoured by other countries, or, indeed pursued faithfully by the USA itself, is beyond the scope of this discussion.
NASA Orbital Debris FAQs No 21 points out that there is no international treaty (external governance) on orbital debris but the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC: http://www.iadc-online.org/ ) addresses orbital debris issues. The Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS: http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/COPUOS/members.html) has also assessed and discussed this issue since 1994. Both IADC and COPUOS have published orbital debris mitigation guidelines.
Currently there are a number of proposals to remove small pieces of debris from space (http://www.space.com/24895-space-junk-wild-clean-up-concepts.html) but these are not yet operational. Larger pieces are often directed into a different orbit height (Graveyard orbit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_orbit) to avoid collisions with operational satellites and the International Space Station (ISS). NASA estimates that the ISS adjusts its orbit on average once a year to avoid collisions with space junk (NASA Orbital Debris FAQ No 8). There is also a “Spacecraft Cemetery” in the Southern Pacific Ocean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_cemetery) where controlled splashdowns of many unwanted spacecraft have been sent (another example of the commons that are our oceans being used as a garbage tip).
Conclusion
Issues continue with peer-reviewed assignments. While many courses offer AI-based reviews, most still require learners to review others’ answers before receiving their own results. Some learners still provide feedback unrelated to the answers. Stay tuned for a deeper investigation into peer-reviewed assignments!
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