  Modern higher education takes advantage of MOOC technology. Modeling an
education process of Massive open online courses (MOOCs) as a dynamic and
multi-agent process is one of the challenging tasks. In this paper, Petri net
extensions are investigated in the context of the learnflow modeling. It is
shown how a learnflow can be modeled with classical and Colored Petri nets.
These extensions facilitate modeling distributed and multi-agent processes.
However, existing Petri net extensions do not provide the ability to model an
education process in the context of multi-course programs and adaptive
learning. We propose \emph{Petri nets with reference data} (PNRDs) for modeling
e-learning in MOOCs. PNRDs allow us to represent a model of the education
process in a visual, clear and not overloaded form. Moreover, PNRDs enable us
to display aspects of multi-course programs and dynamic changes in the MOOC
education process. We also show how PNRDs can be used to model online student
collaboration in project-based learning.
