Coursera will ultimately try and leverage their courses as a hiring mechanism. I'm participating in the course, and have taken a prior course as well. After sigining up you will receive an email from coursera asking your permission to share course results with employers.
If they can't use the course certificate as a signal mechanism then there will be no incentive for employers to partner with them
If they can't use the course certificate as a signal mechanism then there will be no incentive for employers to partner with them