theslink2000

This plugin doesn’t do anything on the surface but if you call the get_user_role() function then you can achieve one of two results.
Function
Returns the role of the specified user.
Usage
Parameters
$user_id 
(string)(optional) ‘username’
Return Values
(string) If no $user_id is specified in the function call the function will return the role of the currently logged in user, otherwise the role of the specified user will be returned.
Examples
$role = get_user_role(“admin”);
This will return “administrator”.
Notes
This plugin may call the following global variables:
$current_user 
$wp_roles 
$wpdb
This plugin is designed to work with any correctly made custom roles.

Get User Role

A simple plugin that add's the get_user_role() function to your site.

wp_joris

When sharing the user and usermeta table between multiple wordpress 
installations using the same database, any role given to the user is only valid 
for a single wordpress installation.
This plugin ensures user roles, user capabilities and user settings are 
shared between the multiple installations. This is configured using a wp-config 
constant.
Any role set in any of the installations will be reflected in all other 
installations.
Caveats:
<ul>
<li>Compatability with wordpress multisite is unknown</li>
</ul>

Shared User Table Roles

Share user roles when sharing the user table between multiple installations.

Get User Role vs Shared User Table Roles