WRDS Account Types
Faculty
Faculty accounts are available to all standing permanent faculty of member institutions. These accounts allow unlimited access through the web, SSH, and/or FTP, and include 10 GB of permanent disk storage. Faculty accounts have a default expiration date of 5 years which can be renewed at the request of the faculty member. Faculty will have their own password access; this password is to remain confidential and is not to be shared with any other individual.
Ph.D.
Ph.D. accounts are available to all current Ph.D. candidates of member institutions. These accounts allow unlimited access via web, SSH, and/or FTP, and include 10 GB of permanent disk storage. Ph.D. accounts have a default expiration date of 2 years and may be renewed if needed. Doctoral students will have their own password access; this password is to remain confidential and is not to be shared with any other individual.
Research Assistant
Research accounts are available to graduate and undergraduate students performing research for a faculty member. These accounts allow access via web, SSH, and/or FTP, and include 10 GB of permanent disk storage. A standing faculty member may have one research assistant. RA accounts have a default expiration date of 2 years. Research assistants will have their own password access; this password is to remain confidential and is not to be shared with any other individual.
Staff
Staff accounts can only be requested by support personnel such as librarians and IT support staff of member institutions. (Please note that this type of account does not automatically carry WRDS Rep privileges, though many WRDS reps have this kind of account. WRDS Rep administrative capabilities are assigned separately from the account designation.) Staff accounts allow unlimited access via web, SSH, and/or FTP, and include 10 GB of permanent disk storage. Staff accounts have a default expiration date of 5 years which can be renewed if needed. Staff will have their own password access; this password is to remain confidential and is not to be shared with any other individual.
Visitor
Visitor accounts are available to visiting visitor faculty (non-permanent or part-time position, or those on a limited appointment). These accounts are subject to additional review and may not be used after the visiting appointment ends. Visitor accounts allow unlimited access via web, SSH, and/or FTP, and include 10 GB of permanent disk storage. Visitor accounts have a default expiration date of 1 year. Visitor accounts will have their own password access, and this password is to remain confidential and is not to be shared with any other individual.
Please note: Lecturers are not eligible for faculty accounts but may apply for a visitor account.
Masters / Undergraduate Student
Masters/Undergrad accounts are available to full-time masters students of member institutions. These accounts allow unlimited access via the WRDS website. Masters/Undergrad accounts have a default expiration date of 2 years. Account-holders will have their own password access; this password is to remain confidential and is not to be shared with any other individual. These accounts do NOT include disk storage, and they expire at the end of the semester. Masters/Undergrad students will not have access to WRDS following the end of your institution's academic year. Access will be provided at the start of the new academic year.
Class
Class accounts may be requested by standing faculty of member institutions and are used to access the WRDS web interface. These accounts are primarily for student usage that is associated with a specific class and all students in the class share the same password. This password is not to be shared with any other individual outside of the class. Due to recent upgrades class accounts can accommodate many users at once, no need to request increased seats. These accounts do NOT include disk storage, access to the WRDS Cloud, or the ability to access WRDS data interactively through SAS, Python, R, MATLAB, Stata, etc. These accounts expire at the end of the semester. Class accounts need to be set up by the Professor, approved by the WRDS Representative, and should not be carried over for the next semester's class.
If at any time an account type is approved incorrectly, the WRDS Representative is able to make the appropriate changes through the Rep Tools on the WRDS website.