The simplest definition of "Gold Open Access" is open access delivered by journals, with the removal - at minimum - of price barriers to access.
The most important tool for identifying open access journals is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which currently includes over 12,300 journals from over 120 countries. All of the titles in the DOAJ are included in the Cheng Library's periodicals directory, and all articles from DOAJ titles indexed in our research databases are accessible through links from the article citations.
The language of the Budapest Open Access Initiaitive (2002), which describes the general characteristics of open access literature, is applicable to open access journals: these are journals that are freely available on the public internet "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself."
In his description of open access (OA) journals, OA expert Peter Suber makes the following additional points:
Source of quoted material: Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 14, 2002) and Peter Suber, Open Access Overview (Last revised December 16, 2013)