Successful implementation and use of learning management systems (LMSs) have become a critical challenge for many higher education institutes during the Covid-19 pandemic. Although LMSs with lots of features were developed for universities, the success of those systems is highly related to a detailed understanding of challenges and factors influencing the use of the systems among their users. HELMS (Higher Education Learning Management System) is a countrywide LMS used for teaching and learning during the quarantine period caused by covid-19 in Afghanistan universities. As it was the first experience of Afghan universities in using the learning management systems during the pandemic, challenges were expected to appear. No previous research has been conducted on either studying the challenges of using the HELMS or investigating the factors influencing the use of HELMS during the Covid-19 pandemic in Afghanistan. Hence, there was no unified view of the potential challenges of using HELMS and factors influencing the use of the HELMS among the researchers. This research aims to investigate the challenges that face the use of HELMS and explore the factors influencing the use of HELMS among both lecturers and students. This study employed a qualitative research method by conducting semi-structured interviews with 100 participants including university management, lecturers, and students. Thematic analysis was used as a method for the analysis of qualitative data. The findings of this research will help policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in public and private universities to grasp knowledge on the successful implementation and use of LMSs during covid-19 and afterward.

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Lack of management and years of conflict have resulted substantial stress over natural and seminatural ecosystem in Bamyan, Afghanistan. In this study, we evaluated the spatio-temporal changes in land cover in Bamyan from 1990 to 2015 and lack of land management issues. To achieve the objective a comprehensive field work survey was conducted with 97 local people and farmars with a framed questionnaire. 88 local people and farmars stated that land cover has changed with 30 years. Both respondent groups specified the reasons as population increase, overuse of resources, overgrazing, shrub collection, drought and mismanagement. The result of interview with governmental organizations and NGOs demonstrated, land degradation is acute problem due to vegetation cover removal, overgrazing, dependency on natural resources, fodder collection and cultivations on steep slopes.Moreover, we applied the Maximum Likelihood Classification method to produce land-cover maps using Landsat images of 1990, 1999, 2008, and 2015. Defining grid cells with unique cell IDs allowed us to quantify spatio-temporal changes in land-cover classes. Rangeland decreased from 60.2% to 37.9%, accompanied by rapid increases in bare soil and built-up classes. This suggests the extension of anthropogenic influence into surrounding natural and semi-natural ecosystems. Statistical comparison of the land-cover changes in 0.81 km 2 grid square cells showed that the decrease in rangeland was strongly negatively correlated with that of bare soil. Furthermore, around Bamyan city, the expansion of builtup areas was strongly positively correlated with that of plantation areas, and negatively correlated with bare soil increases. This is due to the rapid socio-economic changes between 1999 and 2015. The result indicates that years of conflict, absence of management, and socio-economic change caused land cover change in Bamyan between 1990 and 2015.