Initial content for index page, stub user guide

docs/source/guide_user.rst

+.. _guide_user:
+
+PEDASI User Guide
+=================
+
+.. toctree::
+   :maxdepth: 2
+   :caption: Contents:
+
+
+
+References
+**********
+
+* :ref:`genindex`
+* :ref:`modindex`
+* :ref:`search`

docs/source/index.rst

-.. PEDASI documentation master file, created by
-   sphinx-quickstart on Fri Aug 17 13:18:08 2018.
-   You can adapt this file completely to your liking, but it should at least
-   contain the root `toctree` directive.
+.. _doc-index:
 
-Welcome to PEDASI's documentation!
-==================================
+PEDASI
+======
 
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 2
    :caption: Contents:
 
 
+Overview
+********
 
-Indices and tables
-==================
+Developed as a platform and a service to explore research challenges in data security, privacy, and ethics, PEDASI enables providers of data - particularly `Internet of Things`_ data - to share their data securely within a common catalogue for use by application developers and researchers. Data can either be hosted and made accessible directly within PEDASI as an internal data source, or hosted elsewhere and accessible as an external data source through PEDASI.
+
+An initial deployment of the platform is available at https://dev.iotobservatory.io.
+
+.. _`Internet of Things`: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things
+
+
+Key Features
+************
+
+PEDASI's key features are:
+
+ - Searchable catalogue of supported data sources registered by data owners
+ - Extensible connector interface that currently supports HyperCat and IoTUK Nation Database data sources
+ - Dataset discovery and access via a web interface or via an Applications API
+ - Queryable and extensible metadata associated with datasets
+ - Adoption of W3C PROV-DM specification to track and record dataset creation, update, and access within internal datastore
+ - Internally hosted support for read/write NoSQL datastores
+ - Functions as a reverse proxy to data sources, returning data from requests exactly as supplied by the data source
+
+
+Resources
+*********
+
+Documentation is available within this repository for the following stakeholders:
+
+ - :ref:`Researchers and other end-users<guide_user>`: to discover, explore, and make use of datasets using the web interface
+ - :ref:`Administrators<guide_administrator>`: to deploy PEDASI, or provide data or use applications through PEDASI
+ - :ref:`Application developers<guide_developer>`: to develop applications that access data available through PEDASI
+
+This documentation is also available on `Read the Docs`_.
+
+.. _`Read the Docs`: https://pedasi.readthedocs.io/en/dev
+
+
+License
+*******
+
+PEDASI is provided under the MIT licence.
+
+
+References
+**********
 
 * :ref:`genindex`
 * :ref:`modindex`