Digging social networks by mashups to support recruitment and selection functions in university student intake process

Social networks have gained a momentum in drawing attention of businesses. The social web sites, like Facebook, have become a hub to reach millions of people's real profiles. On the other hand, universities have a need of validating candidate students' information during recruitment and selection functions. Considering both, the study looks for an answer on whether people's social network profile information is useful and valuable in the recruitment and selection functions of universities. For this purpose, a mashup application is developed to find and reveal public profile information, available only through web site API's, dropped by people on well-known social networks. To evaluate the effectiveness of such information, the developed mashup application is deployed in a Malaysian university postgraduate admission unit and based on the case study results a conclusion is drawn. The study, additionally, includes a discussion on mashups when developed and used in this context.