THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION: CASE STUDY

Introduction:
The training of Pharmaceutics and their curricular updating are necessary to strengthen the professional performance once the degree studies have been finished. This performance is connected to the relevance of the competences in the job market. This implies the design of research projects in education that allow the Pharmacy Curricula and Programs to feed back.
One of the main elements in this type of studies is the opinion of the graduates. Therefore, the orchestration of these opinions is extremely important. In the same way, locating the graduates by a directory is needed to apply surveys that feed back the Pharmaceutical training programs with their experiences on the labour market.
The strategies aimed to attract graduates present difficulties and seem to take too long. Some examples of these strategies are personal contact, contact with enterprises and employers, mail and invitation to events. The implementation of the TICs in an educational field began as an innovative way that allowed the possibility of connecting in a quick and accessible way, aiming to expand knowledge, learning and a series of interpersonal skills such as communication. Connectivity is the application of the network´s principles to spread both knowledge and learning process. The networks have always existed. So that their study and knowledge make us be able to define the main structures of the network, the behavior pattern and the information flow. Taking into account all their advantages, it was decided to use social networks as a strategy of communication with the Pharmacy Graduates to obtain information, to implement instruments, to update the directory and to exchange information with them.

Materials and Methods:
Population of Graduates of Chemistry-Pharmacy-Biology (CPB) Degree of Fes-Zaragoza (FESZ) of the National Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico (2005-2008 years), graduates´ directory of the CPB Faculty, online instrument and e-mails. Collaborative methodology based on connectivity through the creation of a web-page in a social network and the inauguration of a rapid communication league.

Results:
The creation of the social network achieved to get in contact with 156 CPB Graduates of the 2005-2008 years, that means 35.9% of the total (434 graduates), for 6 months. By means of the social network, 40 graduates responded to the instrument, that is the equivalent to a 25.6%. The sum up of all the means used to implement the instrument corresponds to 32%, where the social network has beaten the methods of personal contact and e-mailing at collecting information. At the same time, several membership requests from graduates of other years (from the oldest one of 1976) have been received, being a total of 363 graduates or 11.2% of the total amount of the Graduates of CPB-FESZ.

Conclusions:
The social networks turned out to be a strategic and useful tool to research in education, for the monitoring of graduates. They have allowed getting in touch with people without any track from their graduation. Furthermore, they contribute to the interaction through chat, to the employment exchange, and to the availability of information about continuous training and events among the connected graduates.