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Distance Education
Student FAQs

What courses does College of San Mateo offer in Distance Education?
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 a current view of online and hybrid courses offered at College of San Mateo, please choose a term below:
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.

Are online courses right for me?
Before enrolling in Distance Education courses, we invite you to take our online workshop, SMCCCD Quest for Success for Prospective Online Learner, to see if these types of courses will meet your needs.

What about late registration? I'm having a hard time registering for classes.
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. 

How do I contact the instructor? 
To contact your instructor, search for the instructor's information in the San Mateo County Community College District Directory by entering the instructors 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. 

Once I enroll in Distance Education courses, how do I get started? When is my first day of class?
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. Should you encounter this error after the course has begun, please contact your instructor to inquire what system is currently being implemented in the course and when it will be available to students.

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 have not received any emails from your instructor you might want to go ahead and contact the instructor.

To locate and access your student email account, log into your WebSmart account where your email account can be found at the bottom of the main page under My Profile. Once you log-in to our my.smccd.edu email account, be sure to update your password. If you decide you would like to use a prefered email address, go to Settings in your my.smccd.edu account and select "Forwarding/ and POP/IMAP" to set up email forwarding. 

Please be sure to check this email account frequently for information from CSM.

How do I access my.smccd.edu accout?
If you know your username and password, you can access your student email account by going to my.smccd.edu. You can also find your email account information in WebSmart at the bottom of the page under My Profile. Select my.Smccd.edu account.