This preliminary study examines how e-tutors at Open University Malaysia apply the four online-facilitation framework, consisting of the PMST roles—pedagogical, social, managerial, and technical—after the university’s shift to fully online teaching. Guided by the newly proposed PMST?Sub-Role Alignment Model (PSAM), a survey of 211?e-tutors captured the self-reported frequency with which 26 sub-roles are performed. Overall, the awareness of the PMST framework is high, but in practice the application is uneven: pedagogical and social roles dominate, while managerial and technical roles appear to receive less emphasis. Within each dimension, e-tutors appear to excel at concept explanation and assignment guidance, maintaining a positive online forum climate, and keeping to e-Tutorial schedules. By contrast, fostering critical thinking, creating informal discussion spaces, proactive outreach to inactive learners, and first-line technical trouble-shooting are less consistently applied. These gaps highlight priority areas for future e-tutor professional development and provide an initial validation of PSAM as a tool for diagnosing role alignment. Strengthening the less-practiced sub-roles should enhance the consistency and quality of online facilitation at the university and similar open-distance institutions.
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