Andrew Vickers

Assistant attending research methodologist and biostatistician, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA

Andrew Vickers' main research interest is clinical trials of what have often been called "complementary" or "alternative" therapies. These include interventions such as acupuncture, massage, botanical medicines, hypnosis and meditation.

What prompted you to submit an article?

I agree with the principles of open access publishing. I also appreciate the speed, ease and utility of accessing papers on the internet rather than in the library.

What was your assessment of the electronic submission and peer review process?

The peer reviews were extremely high quality and the turn around time simply jaw dropping. Papers are being published in 6 - 12 weeks from submission, rather than 9 - 18 months as I have been used to.

What do you think you gained from publishing in an open access journal?

Many more people reading my paper. I published a paper on the statistics of clinical trials and it was read by about 6,000 people in the first year alone. I doubt I would have gotten even a fraction of that readership had the paper been buried in a statistical journal.