Florida Pharmacy Students and Faculty Perspective of Professional Social Media 

Introduction

Social networks are becoming increasing popular and valuable as an institutional learning tool with pharmacy students (1). Students in a Comprehensive Disease management course thought addition of a Facebook page was a valuable study tool that enhanced learning(2). Use of Twitter has also been embraced by students, though use can have drawbacks such as class administration disruption due to large numbers of tweets about class assignments(3). Though students seem to be very familiar with social media and positive about using it, pharmacy preceptors may not be as inclined to use this mode of communication (4). This study surveyed University of Florida students and faculty about the use of social networking platforms to help better understand student and faculty perspective on the applicability of these platforms to the academic setting.

Methods

University of Florida (UF) students and faculty were surveyed using Survey Monkey regarding use of social media. The survey stratified the response population to students or faculty. Students were further stratified as to graduation date and faculty were asked how many years they had been teaching or practicing pharmacy.

Social networking platforms included in the survey were Facebook (FB), Twitter, LinkedIn (LN), RxEconsult (RxE), Google (GG), and other. Then respondents were asked which survey platforms they use the most, what they used the platforms most for, and how often they use these platforms. Respondents were also asked if their institution incorporated and encouraged the use of social networks and if social networks can advance the pharmacy profession through educating other pharmacy professionals or patients. The respondents were then asked if pharmacy programs should incorporate the use of social networks. Questions incorporated the term social networks as a general term though LN and RxE may be more accurately classified as professional social networks.

Results

Total combined number of student and faculty respondents was 127 with the overwhelming majority of 112 being students. Students were fairly evenly split per class graduation dates of 2013 through 2016. Interestingly 13 respondents identified themselves originally as faculty in the survey but 20 answered the teaching/practicing pharmacy question, inferring possibly some who taught were also students.  45% of faculty respondents had been practicing for more than 10 years, 20% for 5 to 10 years, and 35% for less than 5 years.

When questioned about overall social network platform use, overwhelmingly, the one used most was FB at 86.1%.

FB was also the most commonly used social network platform for professional networking at 72.4% with LN a distant second at 36.6%. The four other choices made up the difference.

Finding and posting jobs was by far the most common use for the professional social networks. 76.1% of all respondents used them for finding and posting jobs. The following uses in declining percentages were: Promoting your Skills and Experience (9.2%), Sharing Knowledge (8.3%), Learning (4.6%), Networking (1.8%).

40.2% of respondents used social networks daily while 30.8% used them weekly. 13.1% used them monthly, 3.7% and 12.1% used them yearly or never respectively.

93.3% thought social networks can be used to promote the pharmacy profession, through education of other professionals or the public, with 78.8% indicating their pharmacy program should incorporate social network use but only 37.5% thought their pharmacy programs incorporated or encouraged the use of social networks.