All the museums around the world were closed for a while during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. People could not get access to the physical museums. Many museums find a way to continue to serve their visitors. This situation gives a positive opportunity for museums to create virtual museums and virtual activities instead. Almost all virtual museums simulate exhibitions inside the museums and their artefacts. Experiencing virtual museums is accessible via computer desktop, smartphone, or head-mounted display VR. The virtual museum allows people to continue to learn from the museum, but the social interaction is lost. Social interaction is one important core aspect that museums offer experience to the visitors according to the Interactive Experience Model of Jonh H. Falk. This study promotes how to improve social interaction among visitors while experiencing the virtual exhibit, to study the possibility of social behaviour and social activities that could happen in the virtual world when using virtual reality (VR) technology, especially using a fully immersive head-mounted display (HMD) VR. The study created a virtual experience that simulates the heritage of the Newcomen Steam engine working model and invited players to experience the steam engine together. The qualitative and quantitative results from participants in the experiment show that players can communicate with their partners and have found some social behaviours that happened during their experience in the virtual exhibit.  In conclusion, the fully immersive VR technology enables the recreation of social interaction among visitors during visits to the virtual museum. Having social interaction features gives more benefits to museums, making the virtual museum experience quite similar to visiting the physical museum in some aspects. It is able to connect people having social activities with museums together. This presentation will cover case studies on virtual exhibitions, digital dissemination programs, and educational technologies.

   Pornphan Phichai is a Professional Exhibition Designer and Researcher. Currently, she works in the division of exhibition Design and Production, at the Office of Engineering and Media Production, at the National Science Museum Thailand. Her background is in Computer Science and Design. She got a B.Sc. in Computer Science and, an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Thailand. She also got an M.A. in Interaction Design Communication and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the UK. She had three years of experience as a developer in a software house company. Her Ph.D. research focused on how to apply VR immersive technology to create experiences for museums. She is also interested in novel technologies on how to bring them to create a new interactive interface and experiences for museums and public use.