The investigation reported in this paper intended to explore the research on knowledge management in higher educational institutions in South Asian countries. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify, select and retrieve relevant scholarly literature, by following a detailed protocol and a systematic data extraction strategy. The findings of the study showed that limited research on knowledge management in the context of higher educational institutions was conducted in both theoretical aspects and practical implementations, denoting an imperative to conduct more research in this area. The findings also disclosed that multiple factors affect the knowledge management practices among primary higher educational institution agents: faculty, administrative staff, and information professionals. As the result of the analysis of the literature review findings, a conceptual framework is proposed, which is expected to provide a good foundation for future research as well as pave the way towards more successful knowledge management implementations in the higher educational institutions in South Asia and beyond.

KEYWORDS Digital library; ICT; International Islamic University, Islamabad; Higher Education Commission Pakistan Summary Purpose: This study investigates the acceptance and importance of digital library among female students of International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan. The study also highlights the problems that are confronted by the female students in completing their research work after limited access to digital library in the female campus of the University. Design methodology: Survey was administered personally to collect data from 315 female students of eight faculties of the female campus of the university. The convenient sampling technique was used to collect data from the subjects of the study. Findings: The access to digital library is indispensable to the students to complete their research work. With limited access to the digital library the students were unable to meet their information needs from the Internet and the libraries of other universities. The quantity as well as quality of their research work were affected due the restriction of digital resources. Also the limited access affected adversely to improve insight of the respondents regarding technological developments in their respective area of research. The lack of informational literacy program, IT training workshops, IT literate staff and the electricity failure were the main hindrance to access digital library as well as Internet.Research limitation: This study was limited only to female students of the International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan.

This study aims to investigate the adoption of social media technologies and their impact on academic performance of distance education students at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Islamabad-Pakistan. This study opted Combined-Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behavior (C-TAM-TPB; Taylor & Todd, 1995) as theoretical model. Descriptive survey was administered to collect data with the help of self-reported structured questionnaire on 365 students, randomly selected from the targeted population. The response rate was 84.6%. Majority of the respondents were familiar and using the social media technologies frequently such as Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp whereas Twitter was rarely used, also the students were having poor knowledge about the technology. Similarly, majority of the respondents were having average knowledge and familiarity in using Skype. The results of t-Test disclosed that gender difference existed in opinion towards frequency to use Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and WhatsApp only. The regression analysis also revealed that perceived usefulness, perceived behavior control, attitude towards use helped to enhance the students' actual use of social media technologies. However, perceived ease of use and subjective norms did not contribute in the use of the technologies. Furthermore, distance students' academic performance was increased by using the technologies. This study is delimited to five social media technologies; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, WhatsApp, and Skype only. To our best knowledge, this is first comprehensive study in distance education perspective which may provide guidelines to offer off-campus students services through effective utilization of the social media technologies.

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