Old Sturbridge Village: Creation and Distribution of Monetized Online Content for Old Sturbridge Village’s Virtual Village

Project Sponsor: Old Sturbridge Village

Old Sturbridge Village, the largest open-air museum in the northeast, is set in a period of transformative years in New England. It is a recreation of a typical rural New England town from the 1830s and aims to provide guests with a fully immersive experience from the time period. Unlike traditional museums, Old Sturbridge Village makes use of all five senses to best convey the feeling of living in a long past time period. Visitors are able to engage with costumed historians, touch village artifacts, and experience the everyday life of villagers.

The link to the Old Sturbridge Village website is below:

https://www.osv.org/

IQP Project Team: The Village People

We are the Old Sturbridge Village IQP project team, dubbed “The Village People.” Our names are: Patrick Chernjavsky, Spencer Tess, Anthony Striano, and Matt Scott.

Project Goal: 

Work to provide additional in-depth village experiences and engagement with the audience using a fully online format that can be monetized.

Objective Guidelines:

  • To create a Virtual Village experience as an addition to the museum and not a replacement for existing exhibits and attractions.
  • Recommend content which appeals to a large audience and adds lasting value to the Virtual Village.
  • To create a project that has depth, which will help promote visitor retention and improve the OSV’s virtual presence.

Research Objectives:

  • Identify OSV’s past and present online content and how it was distributed.
  • Learn about current shortcomings of the online presence from visitors and staff of OSV.
  • Determine the best method of online content distribution based on OSV’s visitors’ feedback and background research.
  • Provide a plan for conducting an evaluation of our recommended online content creation and dissemination strategies.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Report:

Creation and Distribution of Monetized Online Content for Old Sturbridge Village’s Virtual Village