A demo for using GALLOC, a GeoAnnotator for Labeling LOCation descriptions
from disaster-related text messages
This demo demonstrates the use of GALLOC for annotating location descriptions in disaster-related text messages. It shows some major functions of GALLOC, such as system login, landing page, creating a new project, annotating location descriptions, automatic pre-annotation, automatic spatial footprint identification, and disagreement resolution. We also provide a comprehensive User Manual for GALLOC.
System login. Log into the system with username and password. You can use a test user account already registered in the system with username as "John" and password as "123". You are welcome to register your own username and password too.
Landing page with projects. After login, you will be shown a landing page with all ongoing projects. Here, you can manage each project. We have created a project called "HurricaneHarvey" within the test account.
Creating a new project. If you would like to create your own project, you can do so by clicking the "Create a new project" button on the landing page. You can then define the name of the project, its geographic scope, category schema, annotator number, and batch size of messages. You will also need to upload a dataset with text messages to annotate. We have provided a small test corpus containing 100 messages for testing. You can also play with the existing "HurricaneHarvey" project already created within the test account.
Annotating location descriptions. To annotate location descriptions, you can click the "Annotate" button of the corresponding project on the landing page. You can annotate a location description by selecting its text in a message, choosing its category, and determining its spatial footprint.
Pre-annotating a message. You can use a pre-annotator to automatically pre-annotate a message. In the screenshot on the right, the highlighted location descriptions are automatically recognized using a pre-annotator "Neurotpr". The URL of this pre-annotator is https://geoai.geog.buffalo.edu/preannotator/neurotpr .
Identifying spatial footprint. You can automatically identify the spatial footprint for a location description using a Web map service. In the screenshot on the right, the spatial footprint of "Brays Bayou" is automatically identified using Nominatim.
Resolving disagreements. Sometimes, different human annotators may label different location descriptions. We can resolve these annotation disagreements by accepting one of the existing annotations or by revising based on the best annotation.
Want to learn more? For more details, please refer to the detailed User Manual.