In current seismic design practice, the response modification factor (R-factor) is used as a factor to reduce the elastic base shear demand to the design force level. As is well-known, the R-factor is a committee-consensus factor and, as such, highly qualitative and empirical. The relationship between the R-factor and the connection rotation capacity available in a particular structural system has remained a missing link. In this paper, a rational procedure to evaluate the R-factor is proposed. To this end, the relationship between the available connection rotation capacity and the R-factor is defined and quantified using nonlinear pushover analysis. An RRS steel frame designed according to IBC 2000 was used to illustrate and verify the proposed procedure. Nonlinear time history analysis results indicated that the R-factor definition proposed in this study is generally conservative from design perspective.