Before the launch of WISHES, several studies were carried out including a study targeting students (more than 4,000 students participated in this survey). These students had the chance to state their information needs when going abroad. Based on these result the WISHES mobility portal was implemented. Thus, WISHES is able to provide the needed information for students, who are about to decide for the right place to work or study abroad.

WISHES will be presented on several European and Non-European conferences. Target-oriented marketing materials will help to get the goals and the spirit of WISHES across – in the online and offline world. But the most effective way to promote WISHES is naturally word-of-mouth: Supported by various WISHES networking challenges every participating university will inform its broad network consisting of other universities and/or enterprises about its WISHES website and thus, promotes and expands the general idea of WISHES – increasing the benefits for everyone involved.

The exchange office is a very important institution for every student who wants to go abroad. WISHES supports the office by providing detailed information about universities, its surroundings etc. Students can gather as much information as possible before they are actually going abroad. The huge benefit that WISHES offers is that all the information is presented in the same structure making the offers easily comparable for the student. Additionally, the presented information are based on expressed students’ needs and are enriched with direct feedback of former exchange students and an online community.

You alone decide who will have the right to update the information on your individual WISHES homepage. Nevertheless, it is always possible that students express their opinions via the community. However, before being able to post a message in the community, students will have to log in and identify themselves. Thus, each message can be traced back to its author making us very positive that students are encouraged to be honest. Furthermore, various feedback loops are foreseen to secure that no harmful and wrong statements will be spread.

This would not be in line with the general aim of WISHES. Students can only find their perfect match if they are able to retrieve information easily. Furthermore, the WISHES mobility portal structures information according to the expressed needs of students researched in various WISHES surveys. Thus, it is in the best interest for WISHES, the students and for the higher education institutions to have one similar overall structure, the structure the WISHES mobility portal is based on.