Global Status of Gold and Diamond Open Access Journals: Insights from DOAJ Data and Development Strategies

Open access (OA) publishing has transformed global scholarly communication by promoting unrestricted access to research outputs. Among its models, Gold and Diamond OA journals play a vital role in enhancing knowledge dissemination and ensuring equitable access across disciplines. This study analyzes the characteristics of global Gold OA and Diamond OA journals indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to provide a reference for the development of OA journals worldwide.This study retrieved and analyzed the subjects, languages, Creative Commons (CC) licenses, peer-review types, publishing status, and other characteristics of global Gold OA and Diamond OA journals indexed in DOAJ. Furthermore, OA publishing status from the top 5 countries (Indonesia, the UK, Brazil, the US, and China) indexed in DOAJ was analyzed and compared, based on which the development strategies of OA were summarized.Among the 22036 OA journals indexed in DOAJ, English-language journals (18188) account for the vast majority (82.5%). Among them, 63.1% (13902) are Diamond OA journals, which are mainly in the social sciences. CC BY is the primary type of CC licenses, followed by CC BY-NC-ND and CC BY-NC. The peer review modes are scattered. DOAJ only indexes 501 Chinese journals, which are different from the global journals, especially in Indonesia, the UK, Brazil, and the US, indexed in DOAJ. Diamond OA accounts for the highest proportion in Brazil, in contrast with the Gold OA in the UK and the US. The publishers’ characteristics of Brazil are also significantly different from UK and the US. Bronze OA is the main OA mode adopted by China's journals.The OA is beneficial for the dissemination of academic achievements and also enhances the visibility of journals. In addition, OA is an important component of open science, and OA journals should adopt specific OA models based on their own characteristics to adapt to the development of open science. Moreover, Open-access infrastructure, such as CC licenses, DOAJ, repositories, and others mean facilitates the development of OA, which provides the insurance for bother authors and readers