Common Questions

Canvas is a learning management system chosen by the California Community College's Online Education Initiative to become the state-wide learning management system for all the California Community Colleges. Please refer to the January 13, 2016 Board Report for more information on Canvas and the OEI Rubric in the SMCCD. Canvas replaced WebAccess on June 6, 2017.

Login with your username 'jdoe' (without @my.smccd.edu) and mySMCCD Portal Password. If you are a new student and have not setup mySMCCD Portal Password, visit First time login tutorial page. If you are having trouble with logging in, visit mySMCCD Login Support page for more support contact information.

Call the Canvas Support line at 844-505-4565 or put in a help ticket with SMCCD Online Course Support. Students can also click on Help on the left in Canvas and Live Chat with Canvas Support.

Once you've registered for a course, a Canvas course will be automatically generated for you. You should be able to find information about logging into your Canvas account in your welcome letter email in your @my.smccd.edu email account.

You can see how the Canvas system itself is doing on the Canvas Status page. You can also check how Canvas is doing in our District on the SMCCD Web Services Status page. Be sure to check both of these pages for a complete status update.

Check out the Canvas Student Login Guide for how to troubleshoot your login issues. If you continue to have issues logging in, call the Canvas Support line at 844-505-4565 or put in a help ticket with SMCCD Online Course Support.

Fill out the Student Canvas Name Change request form. Please note that this name change will only take effect in Canvas and that in most cases only your first name will be changed so that your instructors can still easily identify you in the Canvas gradebook.

Refer to the How do I change the language preference in my user account? Canvas Guide.

We have a variety of general education (GE) courses as well as major class offerings associated with each program of study. Our Distance Education (DE) courses fulfill the general education requirements for the associate degree and many may be used for transfer requirements to satisfy the University of California or California State University lower division general education requirements. Your academic counselor can help you with your Student Education Plan and offer suggestions for online courses.

For information about degrees and certificates offered at College of San Mateo, Cañada College and Skyline College, please visit the District Distance Education Gateway.  

For a current view of courses available, go the WebSchedule. Here you can search for specific course types and subjects.

If you were unable to complete your application and register before the first day of classes, contact the course instructor to obtain a 4-digit authorization code. Only an instructor is able to issue you an authorization code if there is room in the class. Once you have obtained the authorization code, you will need to go to WebSmart to enroll in the class and apply the authorization code to register. 

To contact your instructor, search for the instructor's information in the San Mateo County Community College District Directory by entering the instructor's name. Please allow time for your instructor to respond to you as they may be inundated with emails from other students who are trying to add the course. 

To get started you will need to visit the SMCCD Canvas portal to connect to course content. Canvas will be the primary portal for DE courses, so you should log into this account often to locate information regarding your class(es).

Should you log into your Canvas account a few weeks prior to the start date of the course(s) and not see your class listed, it could be that your instructor may not have made the course(s) available to students. If you have any issues with, please contact Canvas Support. Also, registration information and emails from instructors will be sent to your my.smccd.edu student email account. You can expect to receive communication about your DE course(s) before the first day of school.

If you know your username and password, you can access your student email account by going to my.smccd.edu. If you don't know your email account information, you can always find it in WebSmart. Follow the SMCCD Accessing and Resetting Student Email tutorial for more information.

Once you log-in to our my.smccd.edu email account for the first time, we recommend setting up forwarding to have your school email sent to your personal email.

Distance Education Student Support Services can be found on the Cañada Online Learning Website.