Adjust dashboard about page

_quarto.yml

@@ -35,14 +35,8 @@ website:
       - section: NASA VEDA Platform
         contents:
           - nasa-veda-platform/about/index.qmd
-<<<<<<< HEAD
-          - section: nasa-veda-platform/dashboard/index.qmd
-            contents:
-              - nasa-veda-platform/dashboard/design-principles.qmd
-=======
           - nasa-veda-platform/why/index.qmd
           - nasa-veda-platform/dashboard/index.qmd
->>>>>>> main
           - section: nasa-veda-platform/data-services/index.qmd
             contents:
               - nasa-veda-platform/data-services/data-store.qmd
@@ -123,10 +117,6 @@ website:
       - text: "---"
       - section: open-source-ecosystem/index.qmd
         contents:
-<<<<<<< HEAD
-          - open-source-ecosystem/yet-another-platform.qmd
-=======
->>>>>>> main
           - open-source-ecosystem/architecture.qmd
           - open-source-ecosystem/repositories.qmd
           - open-source-ecosystem/external-resources.qmd

nasa-veda-platform/dashboard/index.qmd

@@ -1,39 +1,78 @@
 ---
 title: VEDA Dashboard
-subtitle: Science presentation and entrypoint
+subtitle: Earth science data made simple, without any downloads or special tools
 aliases:
   - /services/dashboard.html
 ---
 
 ## Goals
 
-The VEDA Dashboard is a modular, flexible white-label web application that enable scientific programs and their contributors to visualize, analyze, and communicate scientific data and results.
+The VEDA Dashboard aims to help science teams visualize their data for their stakeholders, no matter how well versed they might be in Earth science data or how to work with it. In order to do this, VEDA leverages existing open source technologies to build a modular, flexible web application for viewing complex data in the browser.
 
-The ReactJS library offers powerful abstractions for defining and describing data sources (datasets), visualizing them, and exposing them throughout the application in interactive storytelling and data exploration tools.
+The VEDA Dashboard powers several platforms, most prominently the [U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center](https://earth.gov/ghgcenter) and [Earth.gov](https://earth.gov), with more platform instances underway. For more information on the VEDA Dashboard or how to use it, read on.
 
-VEDA Dashboards can serve as the main representation of scientific programs and organizations, putting the data and results in the context of the program, while using open community standards for data access, such that results become directly reproducible and the data access interoperable with other tools such as GIS software or computing environments.
+### Made for reuse
 
-The VEDA Dashboard powers several platforms, most prominently the [U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center](https://earth.gov/ghgcenter) and [Earth.gov](https://earth.gov), with more platform instances underway.
+If you already have your own instance of the VEDA Dashboard, see more information at [Dashboard Configuration](../instance-management/adding-content/dashboard-configuration/index.qmd).
+If you would like to learn more about how to create your own instance of the VEDA Dashboard, see more information at [Instance Management](../instance-management/index.qmd) or email us at [email protected].
 
-See also this detailed list of [principles the VEDA Dashboard is designed around](./design-principles.qmd).
+## 10 Things to Know About the VEDA Dashboard
 
+### 1. Science teams need a way to show their work
+- Science teams often need a web presence to show their research program, findings, and methods and data to their stakeholders, colleagues, and other audiences
+- Modern data-driven science is not only presented through papers, posters, and lectures to fellow scientists and through reports to decision makers, but also through up-to-date interactive online tools and blogs that are available directly to either audience.
+Web and cloud platforms can enable scientists to publish contents in these interactive ways.
+- Often, science programs will want to put their information into a specific context and make it discoverable via their name, which is also important for credibility and attribution.
+- VEDA UI helps science teams combine the two - program-specific websites with interactive data visualization and standardized access.
 
-## Made for reuse
+### 2. The VEDA Dashboard visualizes Earth science data in a way that a CMS can't
+- In order to include interactive data exploration and analysis tools into sites built with traditional CMS tools, you often need to manually embed third-party services into your website, losing any reference to the original data. 
+- Otherwise, you have to rely on a highly customized and expensive service.
+- The VEDA Dashboard set of tools allows you to visualize spatio-temporal data assets within your website, maintaining an interoperable reference to the source data. At the same time, it is completely open source, customizable, and comes without a subscription.
 
-If you would like to learn more about how to create your own instance of the VEDA Dashboard, visit the [VEDA UI docs](https://github.com/NASA-IMPACT/veda-ui/blob/main/docs/development/SETUP.md).
+### 3. It enables science workflows AND communicates to stakeholders in one platform
+- We show that, with cloud-optimized data, we can achieve multiple purposes without considerable additional effort or duplicating data sources
+- Data visualization in web interfaces often relies on copies of original data that were prepared for visualization (even scalable visualization services like NASA WorldView rely on statically produced rendered replicas). Linking the visualization back to original source data, as required for (re)producing scientific analysis, is often not possible or requires connecting a lot of dots.
+- VEDA visualizes data directly off a single authoritative reference that contains data optimized for visualization as well as direct access, avoiding the issue of missing links between source and rendered data. The data a user sees in VEDA has a direct reference to source data (often via STAC).
+Another benefit of dynamic tiling is that users are able to adjust viewing parameters such as color map and value range to focus on, to study details of their interest.
 
+### 4. Features are optimized for Earth science data but other spatio-temporal applications might find them useful
+- Spatio-temporal data often comes from Earth observations or Earth system models. However, the principle of integrating dynamically rendered data into a website is valuable for many branches of data-intensive science, such as heliophysics or astrophysics
 
-::: {.callout-note title="Ongoing VEDA Dashboard refactor"}
-We are currently changing the way VEDA Dashboard applications are composed and configured to better accommodate the needs of different science programs that adopted it.
+### 5. The VEDA Dashboard is completely open-source
+- The code is open and accessible, and the tool itself proliferates the use of open standards and reproducible data access for open science
+Community involvement will become important to the long-term success of VEDA
 
-In Version 1, the application had a pre-defined structure (homepage, catalog, data explorer, about), routing, and page layout, that was configurable through Markdown and YAML (MDX) and where features could be overridden, if need be.
+### 6. Each science team can create their own VEDA Dashboard with different content, data, and features
+Existing VEDA instances:
 
-In Version 2 (expected in production by mid 2025), the features are broken out into more modular React components and separated from pages and state management, such that they can be composed flexibly and science programs can implement the content organization, routing logic, and selection of features that best fits their audience.
+- Template
+- Earthdata
+- Greenhouse Gas Center Portal
+- earth.gov
 
-Read more about the rationale and principles for the change in our [Architecture Decision Record](https://github.com/NASA-IMPACT/veda-ui/tree/main/docs/adr/002-application-architecture-for-configurability.md).
-:::
+Planned VEDA instances:
 
+- Air Quality Portal
 
-## Configuration
+### 7. Each science team will customize their VEDA Dashboard to meet the needs of their audience
+![Dashboard audiences](images/VEDA Engagement.jpeg)
+
+### 8. There is a template for science teams to see features and a potential layout
+- The Dashboard is NOT a replicable white-label website/dashboard, or even a single website
+- Each science team will make their own instance of the Dashboard, and a template instance will provide some guidance and a starting point, if the teams need it
+- However, each team can decide how to use the features available
+
+### 9. Utilizing an integrated STAC, a VEDA Dashboard can show data from a variety of sources
+There are different ways to integrate data, such as:
+- Using platform storage, catalog, and data access services
+- Catalog externally stored data, serve through platform services (e.g. cloud-optimized GeoTIFF in DAAC S3; TiTiler and TiTiler-Xarray)
+- Rely on external storage and catalog, serve through platform services (e.g. TiTiler-CMR)
+- Integrate third-party data services (ArcGIS ImageServer etc., WorldView WMS) 
+While open source cloud-native geospatial data services are preferred, we should also avoid making copies of data and instead rely on existing, authoritative services.
+
+### 10. There are other frontends for VEDA
+- The VEDA Dashboard is just one frontend for VEDA, and should integrate well with other frontend options for users
+- The virtue of open-standard, open-access data services is that many interfaces can connect to them (interoperability).
+- Within the VEDA project, we promote the use of STAC Browser to browse the VEDA catalog, interactive code notebooks for finding and loading data (VEDA JupyterHub), and multiple data websites to use the same services (ESA/NASA/JAXA EO Dashboard, Earth.gov, …).
 
-Please see our docs on [Dashboard Configuration](../adding-content/dashboard-configuration/index.qmd).