News and tips by and for staff providing reference services at the Newman Library, Baruch College (New York, NY).
These four datasets on the WRDS platform are not available right now:
As soon as access is restored, an updated will be posted here.
Other datasets on WRDS are not affected.
Datasets on WRDS will be unavailable on Wednesday, January 11, from 8 AM – 11 AM for planned maintenance by the vendor.
Access to DealScan has changed this week. We now can access it on the WRDS platform.
Once you’ve clicked the link on our databases pages for DealScan and logged into WRDS, you’ll see all the datasets we have access to in the “Subscriptions” section of the WRDS home page. Select “Thomson Reuters” from this list of datasets.
On the next page, you’ll see links to various datasets that are part of DealScan that you can work with.
If you need to access the Corporate Library dataset in WRDS, the listing for it on our A-Z databases page is now found under MSCI.
As noted by Mike Waldman on the email list this morning, WRDS has started to automatically expire older WRDS accounts for faculty. If you are contacted by a faculty member whose WRDS account expired, ask them to get in touch with Frank Werber from BCTC so the account can be extended.
The problem reported earlier today that prevented off campus users from accessing any of the WRDS databases has been fixed (I found an updated setting for that collection of databases that I had to add to the EZproxy server).
SEE UPDATE BELOW
The suite of databases we get from WRDS (Wharton Research Data Services) are currently unavailable from off campus (on campus access is fine). When off campus users have entered their Baruch username and password on our login page, they next see an error message on the WRDS site that says:
Unable to locate address for wrds-web.wharton.upenn.edu, please try again later.
I’ve submitted a support request to WRDS about this problem. For now, direct any users to on campus access.
UPDATE (17 October 2016, 3:02 pm)
The problem has been fixed. Remote access is working again.
Thanks to the Zicklin School of Business, we now have access to Thomson Reuters Institutional (13f) Holdings. Access is via WRDS, and is limited to Baruch affiliated users. This database provides Institutional Common Stock Holdings and Transactions, as reported on Form 13F filed with the SEC.
The RiskMetrics database available on the WRDS platform has been renamed ISS. The link to ISS can now be found on the I-J tab of the main databases page. Through this summer, there will be a see reference link on the Q-R tab that redirects users to the I-J tab for the ISS link.
FWIW, I had forgotten about what was in this particular database. If you want data on directors (names, ethnicity, affilations, etc.) and governance of a publicly traded company, then ISS is the place to go.
Currently enrolled Baruch students and current Baruch faculty have two options for getting to any of the WRDS databases we subscribe to. They can get a “day pass” e-mailed to them or they can register for a personal account that, depending on the standing of the person (undergraduate student vs. masters vs. doctoral vs. faculty), will not expire for a long time. Because the process of setting up a personal account is somewhat hidden on the WRDS interface, it’s worth documenting it here with some screenshots.
Step 1: On the databases pages, click on any link for one of the WRDS databases (e.g., CRSP).
Step 2: The main WRDS login page will show up (if the user is off campus, they will see our usual remote access login page first and then the WRDS login page next). If a “day pass” is all that’s needed, then the user can enter their Baruch email address in the box provided. If the user wants to set up a personal account, they should click on the link on the lower left corner of the page:
Step 3: On the sign-in page for personal accounts, new users should click the link “Register for a WRDS account.”
Step 4: Complete the registration form and click “Submit”:
Step 5: The user will get an automated email that confirms their request for a new account. Those incoming requests are approved manually by Frank Werber in BCTC. Once approval has been given, the user will get a 2nd email with a link in it that takes them to a page in WRDS where they will be prompted to create a personal password and then login with their newly minted credentials.
If there are any problems, contact Frank Werber in BCTC.