The phrase haunts the halls of academia: publish or perish. It refers to the need for professors to publish work, lest their contracts run out. It’s stressful, and it takes valuable time away from teaching. While the online education world is far too broad to make sweeping generalizations about, it follows that if students seek out online education for its flexible schedule, wouldn’t teaching online free up some time for research?

Students? What Students? Where?
The absent-minded professor cliché has its roots in research-driven-instructor reality. Anyone who has made it through enough schooling to become a full-fledged professor knows how to do research and has probably come to enjoy it. The trouble comes when these flighty professors let teaching duties slide to accommodate their intensive research schedules.

Now, there’s one obvious benefit to having research savvy professors: They’re on the cutting edge, not stagnating in outdated theories or outmoded schools of thought. These professors are advancing their field. Sure, it’s time consuming, but the benefits are numerous.

Pressure Point
The trouble comes with publishing. Research is great, but getting it published (especially the more esoteric stuff) is often difficult. Another benefit of the Internet, though, is that it’s made getting published a lot easier. The low overhead of online journals has made it possible for a great many more articles to be seen by an even greater number of people. The trick before this was to research and research and research and then write paper after paper after–you get the idea–until one finally got published, at which point the professor could relax for a day or two, maybe even get back to teaching.

You Make Your Hours; I’ll Make Mine
Just like students at online universities, professors have a more flexible schedule than they would at a brick-and-mortar college. This isn’t to say that teaching online takes less time, far from it. It simply allows professors to do their research without having to leave for an hour to go teach a class.

The publishing expectations vary from school to school, so publish or perish is still a concern, but at least our absent-minded professors  don’t have to worry about keeping track of a schedule.