ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AN ONLINE SURVEY APPLIED IN PHARMACEUTICAL TECHNOLOGY AT THE FACULTY OF PHARMACY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALCALÁ

Pharmaceutical Technology is a science-based, novel, optional module (subject) exclusively taught in the Pharmacy Degree programme at the University of Alcalá (Spain) since 2014/15. This module has been specifically designed for undergraduate pharmacists and focuses on teaching skills in formulation, production of pharmaceutical compounds and active ingredients, equipment to produce drugs and drug delivery. This optional module is critical for future pharmacists that wish to work in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically in the production of drugs and drug formulation, and has covered a gap in the general syllabus of the pharmacy degree as traditionally the contents of the pharmaceutical technology are taught at Master’s level. The purpose of this subject module is to provide students with basic knowledge about the registration of pharmaceutical compounds and drugs, good manufacturing practice, preparation, control, packaging and conditioning of pharmaceutical forms in the pharmaceutical industry. In summary, the main purpose of this subject is that students become familiar with the industrial processes of preparation of drugs, complying with the current legislation to maintain a high level of quality in the process of development, manufacture and control of drugs. The syllabus of this course was recently re-visited in 2015/16 and updated following new quality requirements, new production processes and high tech, drug manufacturing systems for future drug production. Students’ impressions and feedback were collected in 2015/16 in an effort to optimize the quality of teaching at university using a validated on-line survey created with the software One Drive. The surveys of Excel Online are a new utility of Office 365 that allows creation surveys through a form and saving the results in an Excel spreadsheet. This One Drive software simplifies and facilitates the development of personalised feedback questionnaires which are very easy to complete and could be incorporated to higher education to assess the degree of engagement of undergraduate students that are now demanding more interesting and engaging lectures, tutorials and other course content.

The on-line survey generated was very simple and had only eight items, which let both academics and students identify immediately whether the specified learning outcomes were met. The questionnaire also helped academics to review the teaching practice promoting the use of teaching tools to achieve quality learning, gave greater prominence to students in their learning process and finally organised teaching based on the results that were obtained. This communication will also describe the different modifications that we will perform to this module following students’ feedback.