Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for information retrieval pathway guidance. In particular, the systems and methods provided apply artificial intelligence to novel tasks related to retrieving remotely accessible data such as detecting competency levels of users, generating personalized guidance for individual users based on the retrieval goals and initial competency level of a user, generating custom diagnostic assets for those goals based on current strengths and weaknesses, generating content for custom questions for those diagnostic assets, and dynamically tracking and updating the competency level of the user during the course.

Abstract: In systems which support oral entry of Personal Identification Number (PIN) values in order to establish access to user accounts, a user is prompted to enter the PIN value for a particular account. The entered PIN value is analyzed by a speech recognition engine to extract both a multi-digit number and the user's expression of that number. The extracted multi-digit number is compared to a multi-digit number stored in a user record associated with the account. If the user previously specified that expression matching is required, the extracted expression of the multi-digit number is compared to a preferred expression stored in the user record. Matches must be found for both the numbers and the form in which those numbers are expressed in order for the user to be authenticated. The user may elect to dispense with the expression matching requirement.