Navigating Co-Authorship Across Institutions: A Guide to Data Sharing and Compliance

While WRDS encourages collaborative research, sharing raw data between researchers at different subscribing institutions—or with those not affiliated with WRDS —can violate licensing agreements and pose serious data security risks. Such violations may also breach the terms agreed upon between WRDS and its data providers.

To remain in good standing with WRDS and its data providers, and to ensure ethical, policy-compliant research, researchers should follow these key guidelines

1. Verify Institutional Access Before Sharing

Before sharing any data with a co-author:

• Confirm that your collaborator is affiliated with a WRDS subscribing institution.
• Ensure their institution subscribes to the specific dataset being referenced or used in your research.

2. When Your Co-Author Lacks Data Access

If your co-author is not a WRDS subscriber or does not have access to the data in question:

• Only share data as permitted under the data use agreement from the vendor.
• The following conditions for sharing are commonly accepted among data vendors.
  • The shared data is a limited subset of the full dataset.
  • Proprietary fields are either excluded, significantly altered, or anonymized to prevent standalone analysis.
  • Whenever possible, share results from material transformation (e.g., calculated metrics or aggregated results) that cannot be reverse-engineered for independent analysis outside the scope of your joint research.

3. Co-Authorship Is Not a Loophole

It is never appropriate to name a researcher as a co-author solely to grant them access to data their institution does not license. Similarly:

• Creating a temporary appointment (e.g., as a Visiting Faculty or Research Assistant) solely to access restricted data is a violation of WRDS Terms of Use.
• Researchers with dual affiliations must obtain written approval from WRDS if requesting more than one user account.

• Sharing raw WRDS data with co-authors at institutions that do not subscribe to the dataset
• Using co-authorship as a means of circumventing access restrictions
• Sharing proprietary data fields or full datasets without vendor permission
• Submitting raw data to reviewers/auditors without a proper agreement on its deletion post-review

Violating WRDS Terms of Use or associated data agreements can have serious implications, including:

• Loss of authorship credit
• Fines or legal penalties
• Suspension of access privileges
• Reputational damage to both the researcher and affiliated institution(s)

Once your research paper is complete and you move toward publication:

1. Follow the Publisher Submission and Audit Requirements

• Many journals require that your paper be audited for accuracy before publication.
• During the audit process, you may be asked to submit raw data directly to the journal or its audit partner.

2. Ensure Data is Handled Properly

• The submitted raw data must be used only for audit purposes.
• The auditing party typically agrees in writing that the data will be:
  • Used solely for verification of your published results
  • Not retained, reused, or redistributed
  • Expunged or deleted once the audit process is complete.

Always verify that the auditing body agrees to these terms in writing, and retain that confirmation for your records.

Questions?

For further clarification on responsible data use or co-authorship guidelines, please get in touch with WRDS Support before initiating data sharing or submitting your paper.