UTD School of Arts and Humanities

Rhetoric Teachers' Handbook
The University of Texas at Dallas – School of Arts and Humanities

UTD Rhetoric Program Information

Rhetoric Primer

Rhetoric 1302 - Course Description

Teaching Tips

Teaching Exercises

Classroom Technology

Top Ten FAQ's

Computers

Training Tutorials

Learning Record Online

LRO FAQ's

LRO Main Log-in

Moderation Procedures

Setting Up a Class

Course Strands

Learning Dimensions

Beginners Guide to MOOing

Establishing Student Accounts

MOO Building Quick Tips

MOO Resources

Lingua Moo Home Page

Requesting Classroom Technology

Scholastic Dishonesty

UTD Resources

Learning Record Online:
Setting-up a Course

Before You Start
Before you set up a course in the LRO, gather the following important information:

Your LRO password.
You must use this LRO password as it is provided to for your first login to the LRO. You may then change your password to something you think more secure or memorable.
NOTE: When you receive your LRO password, record it somewhere. If you lose or forget your LRO password it cannot be retrieved, either by Cynthia Haynes or the LRO administrators, because it is stored in an encrypted and unreadable format. Instead, you must request a new password and then reregister yourself in the LRO using this new password.
The five-digit "Unique Course Number" for each section you are teaching.
These numbers identify your specific courses and sections and must be used when you set up a course in the LRO. One unique course number is required for each course section you teach.
VALID email addresses from each of your students.
These addresses MUST be for active UTD accounts where your students regularly receive email messages. It is critical that the email addresses you collect be active since it is to these addresses that student passwords will be sent. Without these passwords students cannot access the LRO. It is also critical that the addresses you collect be completely accurate. Doublecheck spellings and special characters. Any mistakes, either in the way students write their email addresses, the way you read them, and the way you write them, will prevent students from receiving their LRO passwords and create more headaches for you. Spending the time now to make sure everything is accurate will save time and trouble later.

For the appropriate verbage for the five course strands, see STRANDS.
For the appropriate verbage for the five course dimensions, see DIMENSIONS.
For the appropriate verbage detailing grade criteria, see "Grading Criteria".

Setting up your LRO Course

Once you have the information listed above, follow these step-by-step instructions to setting up a course in the LRO:

Using a web browser program, go to the LRO homepage. To access the LRO from a computer in any UTD Rhetoric Program classroom or office:
- Turn on the computer
- Open the web browser program
- By default, the web browser should open to the "UTD Rhetoric Program" homepage
- If not, enter http://lingua.utdallas.edu/rhetoric/ in the browser and connect to the "UTD Rhetoric Program" homepage
- Click the "Learning Record Online" link in the right hand menu
- The LRO login page should open in the browser window
To access the LRO from a computer outside the UTD Rhetoric Program classrooms or offices, or off-campus:
- Turn on the computer
- Open the web browser program
- Enter the URL for the LRO in the browser: http://lro.cwrl.utexas.edu
- The LRO login page should open in the browser window
Login to the LRO. On the right hand side of the login screen you will see a box where you should enter your email address, and another box where you should enter your LRO password. Below these boxes are two buttons. Click the one labelled "Teacher." Finally, click the button labeled "Login."
NOTE: Immediately below the "Login" button is a link entitled "Forget your password?" Use this link if you do forget or lose your LRO password. Clicking this link leads to a new page where you enter your email address and click a button labeled "Reset Password." This will generate an email message to you from the administrators of the LRO containing your new LRO password. You must use this new password as it is provided for next login to the LRO. You may then change your LRO password to something you think more secure or memorable.
Once you have logged in, a welcome message should appear in your browser window. At the bottom of this message is a link labeled "Setup New Course." Click this link.
Another welcome message should appear in your browser window. Click on the link labeled "Start New Course Setup."
A screen with a number of boxes to fill in should appear in your browser window. Enter the following information in these boxes:
- PRIMARY COURSE NUMBER: 1302-xxx This is the course number (1302) and your three-digit section number (xxx). Enter your three-digit section number to replace the "xxx" in this example.
- COURSE TITLE: Rhetoric
- COURSE LEVEL: [select Lower Division from the menu]
- TERM: [select the appropriate term from the menu]
- YEAR: [already defaulted with correct year so leave it alone]
- INSTITUTION: [select University of Texas at Dallas from the menu]
  At the bottom of this screen is a link labeled "Next." Click this link.
  NOTE: DO NOT click the link labeled "Done" until you are completely finished with the course set up procedure. The next few screens will each end with a link labeled "Next" and you should select these links until you are completely finished.
The next screen asks only one thing: how many sections you wish to create.
The default here is "1," and already appears in the box. LEAVE THE "1" IN THE BOX, even if you are teaching 2 sections. You must go through this process
to setup a course for the second of your 2 sections. Click the link labeled "Next."
The next screen is confusing, but the ONLY thing you enter on this screen is the five-digit unique course number for your course. This number should be entered in the box labeled "Input New Unique Numbers To Add for this Section." DO NOT enter anything in any other box on this screen. Click the link labeled "Next" at the bottom of the screen.
NOTE: If you have not already done so, obtain the five-digit unique course number for each course section you are teaching from Dr. Cynthia Haynes or find this number by looking up your course and section in the main UTD Course Look-up webpage.
This screen asks you to select from a list of departments. Please select "Arts & Humanities" from the list. Click the link labeled "Next" at the bottom of the screen.
This screen asks you to enter the verbage for the five course strands. You should have these handy, either in an email message file, or a word processing file. Open the appropriate program and then open the file containing the descriptions of the five course strands. Click on the button that says "Add New Strand."
On the next screen, enter the first strand title as "Rhetoric." Then, copy and paste the "Rhetoric" verbage from your file containing the five course strand descriptions and paste it into the description box. Click the link labeled "Save."
The next screen is the original course strand screen. Click the link labeled "Add New Strand" and repeat the process described above to create a new course strand. Enter the appropriate course strand title in the title text box, and the appropriate course strand verbage in the description box. Click the link labeled "Save." Repeat this process until you have entered a title and description for each of the five course strands.
When you have finished entering titles and descriptions for each of the five course strands click the "Next" button at the bottom of the screen.
The next screen displays pre-provided grading criteria. You may use this criteria as is, edit it to something more appropriate for your course, or edit it to match grading criteria provided by Dr. Cynthia Haynes and designed to be used for all course sections.

If you decide to use the grading criteria as provided, click the link labeled "Next."

If you decide to edit the provided grading criteria, follow these steps:
1. Click the button beside the "A" grading criteria
2. Click the button below labeled "Edit Selected Grading Criteria"
3. On the next screen select the "A" in the top text box and then enter any new grading criteria. You can type this criteria yourself, or cut and paste from another file. If you have the grading criteria provided by Dr. Haynes, use that as your source for the new, edited text.
4. Click the link labeled "Save"
5. The next screen will be the original Grading Criteria screen and you will see that now you have two sets of "A" Grading Criteria. The LRO allows you to enter new grading criteria, but it does not automatically delete any and/all earlier versions. You must do this yourself by following these steps:
  - Click the button beside the "A" Grading Criteria that is NOT your edited version
  - Click the link below labeled "Drop Selected Grade Criteria"
  - A pop-up box appears with a message reading "Click OK To Drop this Grade Criteria." This is a failsafe message, to make sure you really want to delete this grading criteria.
  - If you do, indeed, want to drop this grading criteria, click the link labeled "OK"
  - Repeat these steps for each grading criteria you wish to change
6. When you have finished editing all the grading criteria, click the link labeled "Next."
You go now to a screen that says FINISHED and your course should show up as a link under the word COURSES in the top left side of your screen. Once that is there, you can click on it and you will see a new menu listing for that course that will include things like:
- Course Setup [This is only if you need to revise or add info later]
- Add Students [You will add your students once you have their email address]
- Manage Assignments [You don't need to do this]
- Set Absence Policy
- Manage Class Attendance
- Change Password [Do set a new password for yourself, but write it down!]
- Start an In-Class Moderation [Don't worry about this now, we'll do it later]
For now, just go to Set Absence Policy. On that screen put the maximum # of absences allowed without affecting the grade. For MWF schedules, set that to 3, for Tue-Thu and Mon-Wed, set that to 2. We don't really have a policy on that 2nd box, maximum number of absences allowed without failing the course, so you may set that to 3 as well (or 2 if it applies to your teaching). Then set the last box as the percentage of a whole absence that you will count tardiness. If you think that 3 tardies should count as 1 absence, then set that to 33%. If 2 tardies count as 1 absence, set it to 50%. Then click SAVE.
Once you have students entered, that will generate an email to them with their own password. Be sure to tell them to expect an email from "nobody@cwrl.utexas.edu". After you have students entered, when you log in to the LRO and select the course link, you will see a list of your students down the left side of the screen. After class meets each time, you can click on MANAGE CLASS ATTENDANCE, and check off who was present, late, etc. Be sure to enter the correct date in the box (the date above that box will be 1 day off for some reason) and click in the appropriate box for each student, then click SAVE ATTENDANCE at the bottom. NEVER EVER click the RESET button! You will lose all your attendance records for that class if that happens.