Research from the US Department of Education suggests that students studying online tend to outperform those receiving face-to-face tuition; The Open University in the UK has topped 20 million downloads on iTunes U; and, worldwide, social media has overtaken pornography as the number one activity on the web.

However, recent statistics from the US show that the academy may be failing to capitalise on the potential offered by new technology.

Times Higher Education - Students 'let down' by the academic Luddites

I'm sure this trend isn't confined to the US. The article goes on to say that academics are short on time, and aren't able to commit the time required to learn about new technologies because it impacts upon their other scholarly activities.

But place-based education is likely to be less important in the future. Sooner or later, there will be a new generation of academics who won't have to take time out from other scholarly activities to learn about social media and technology in general. Will that be too late for some non-sandstone bricks and mortar higher education institutions? There will be other pressures of course, but the answer is, undoubtedly, yes.