Open Access Journals are "free availability on the internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the nternet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited."
Suber, P. (2011). Budapest open access initiative. Retrieved from http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/ fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess
Open Access Explained - this eight-minute video gives a great overview on Open Access: